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LIFE INSIDE THE CHURCH OF 

ROME. 



M. piANCIS CLARE CUSACK, 

" THE NUN OF KENMARE." 




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ttS$ fjftRARY 

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WASHINOTbNl, 






Copyright, 1889, 
By M. FRANCIS CLARE CUSACK. 



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PREFACE. 



^ I ^HIS book will be characterised by plain speaking, 
-*- and contain a record of plain facts. I hesitated 
long and thought much before I began this work, 
because I knew how great its importance would be, 
and I did not forget that I shall have to answer to 
God for what I have written. I know that all the 
treachery and deceit of which I have been made 
the subject is the common, ordinary practice of the 
Church of Rome ; and if my sufferings have been 
great, and if the treatment which I have received 
has been cruel, it has simply been because I was at 
the mercy of a power which knows no mercy, and 
which makes persecution a dogma of her Church. 

As I shall have occasion to mention my autobio- 
graphy several times in the course of this work, I 
may at once refer the reader to the end of this volume 
for particulars of its contents. It may be well to 
state here that any one who reads Roman Catholic 
lives of Roman Catholic canonized saints, will find 
in them ample evidence of the persecuting spirit 
of the Roman Catholic Church. Every one of those 



iv PREFACE. 

"saints" whom the Roman Church now honours so 
highly, was in his or her hfetime made the subject 
of the bitterest opposition, and the victim of the 
most cruel persecution. Rome hated her own saints 
while they were living, but canonised them when 
they were dead. 

Rome need not boast of the good works which 
have been done in her Church, because they have 
been accomplished, for the most part, not because of 
the help of the Church, but in spite of its opposition. 

Would to God that the eyes of all mankind 
could be opened to see Rome as she is ! It has the 
power in many countries to trample on and crush 
the weak, because it flatters and bribes the strong to 
act as its ally in evil, until the strong also become 
weak ; and then they, too, learn what are the tender 
mercies of this professedly Christian Church. 

Rome, or rather the Pope, sits in the temple of 
God, showing himself to be God, for he claims the 
very authority of God to add to the commands of 
God at his pleasure. I shall show that Rome is a 
Church which has always tolerated, if it has not 
encouraged, immorality ; and I shall show this from 
facts which cannot be disputed. I beg of my dear 
Roman Catholic friends to read patiently before they 
condemn. It is a man's own loss if he lives in 
wilful ignorance. Truth remains ; facts are there all 
the time, whether we believe or disbelieve them. 
It is no wonder that Rome is afraid of history, of 
education, an4 of truth. If Rome was not afraid of 



PREFACE. V 

truth, why should she persecute those who declare 
it ? Magna est Veritas ct prevalabit — " Great is truth 
and it shall prevail." If a man is denied all know- 
ledge of facts, if he must not read the history of past 
ages in which he will find the history of the Popes, 
how can he know that they were too often the most 
corrupt and immoral men, even in an age when 
corruption was common ? What advantage is it to 
him to be ignorant of facts ? How does he know 
that the Roman (so called) Catholic Church is a 
system which depends on ignorance for its perpetua- 
tion, and for its existence ? In order to be a "good 
Catholic " you must be an ignorant man. You must 
not know that Popes committed incest, that « they 
committed unnatural^ crimes. You must believe 
that they were saints, all good and holy naen, with 
perhaps, when the evil cannot altogether be denied, 
a few exceptions; for it will be admitted that "a few 
Popes '' were not as good as they should have been. 
You must not know that they committed the most 
fearful crimes to advance their illegitimate children : 
and that they even had their mistresses in the very 
Vatican palace, where you go to kneel with such 
reverence, and from whence you take your orders 
not only as to your religious belief, but as to your 
political conduct. 

I do not ask you to take my word for these 
things, but I do ask you to read later, in this book, 
the facts of history as told even by Roman Catholic 
historians. I ask you to consider facts, and I shall 



vi PREFACE. 



give you the opportunity of ascertaining that these 
facts are well founded, by placing before you the 
sources from which they are derived. 

If the facts which I shall bring forward shock 
you, amaze you, startle you, the question is not 
whether they are very dreadful, but whether they are 
true. Some of these awful disclosures were made 
by a Roman Catholic bishop still living and 
ministering in the Roman Catholic Church. Your 
reason is a gift which God has given you, and for 
the use of which He will most certainly hold you 
accountable. Do you not know the parable of the 
talents } Da you not know that God condemned 
the man who hid the one talent which God had 
given him, and cast him into outer darkness because 
he had not used it ? 

Where and when has God told you that you are 
not to use the talent of reason, which He Himself has 
given you } If that talent was withdrawn from you, 
what would you be ? If you had not reason, you 
would be no better than the beasts of the field, and 
a man who refuses to use his reason will be classed 
hereafter as a beast, as one unworthy of this sublime 
and best of God's gifts. No wonder the Roman 
Catholic is forbidden, except with a special license, 
to read the Bible. If he did he would become too 
wise, he would become wise unto salvation. Now 
and then the Church of Rome makes a great show 
of permitting or advising the Roman Catholic to read 
" parts " of the Bible, as Cardinal Gibbons has done 



PREFACE, vii 

lately. But if he may read parts to his advantage, 
why not read all ? Is it not all God's word ? Where 
does God say read " parts " of the Bible ? No ; He 
says, " search the Scriptures ; " not a part of them, 
but all of them, so that you may know what God 
wishes you to believe. And what man shall dare for- 
bid you to do what God Himself has told you to do ? 
Why, the inspired Apostle Paul says that even if 
an angel from heaven should preach another Gospel 
than that which he preached, let him be accursed. 
Hence the Church of Rome actually curses herself 
when she preaches to you that you may not " search 
the Scriptures," since it is the very command of God 
in the Bible that you should do so. 

Few Protestants have the least idea how entirely 
ignorant even the best educated Roman Catholics 
are of the Bible. I was often surprised to find that 
very few of the sisters knew anything of the Scriptures. 
They knew nothing of them, in fact, except the 
short extracts from the New Testament to be found 
in the Prayer Books they are allowed to use. 

It is wise to keep people in ignorance when you 
desire to deceive them. 

I have been often asked how it was that I re- 
mained so many years in the Roman Church, when 
I ought to have known that it was a corrupt Church. 
The question is a fair one, and it has direct reference 
to what I am now saying. It was because I was 
kept in ignorance. I had read history as most 
people read it, in a general way. I was well informed 



viii PRESAGE. 



as to the history of England, of Ireland, of Scotland, 
of ancient Rome, of Greece, of Eastern, and of 
pagan nations ; but I had not read the history of 
Rome under the Popes. Possibly it was thought, if 
the subject was considered at all, that the study was 
an unfit one for a young girl. Here, then, is another 
example of the danger of ignorance. If, in my early 
years, I thought at all about the Popes, it was to 
suppose that they were much like other princes, and 
that their personal history was a matter of little 
importance. So ignorant are Roman Catholics of 
the true history of their own Church, that it comes to 
them as an overwhelming shock when they first hear 
that many of the Popes were bad men. They are 
indignant with their informant ; they will not believe 
him ; all of which shows how wise the teachers of 
their Church are in keeping them in ignorance. And 
their indignation is equally great when they are 
shown the plain teaching of the Scripture from their 
own Douay Bible, which, notwithstanding alj the 
corrections of its translation the Roman Church has 
given it in this nineteenth century, is so plainly 
Protestant. 

Surely it is time for people of intelligence to ask 
themselves what kind of religion is this which 
depends for its existence on the ignorance of its 
followers t Why is it, if this religion is Divine, that 
it fears the light of history, of the Bible, or even of 
every-day facts t If the Church is so sure of her 
infallibility, why does she take so many, and even 



PREFACE. ix 

such violent means to prevent her claims from being 
fairly questioned or canvassed ? 

I was long in the Roman Church before I knew 
anything of the evil lives of priests or Popes, and, I 
may add, of the priests and the Popes of the present 
day. 

Some years since I wrote a life of Pius IX., 
who, I then believed, was a persecuted saint. I 
believed this because I was told so, and because I 
had no means whatever of knowing the contrary. 
See again the great importance of keeping people in 
ignorance. No books are allowed to be read, no 
papers are allowed to be seen, above all in convents 
or colleges, where the young are educated (?), which 
will give the least idea of the facts of daily life, if 
those facts are supposed to be in any way adverse 
to the Roman claims. And this is religion. The 
priests of Greece and ancient Rome have been the 
models of the priests of to-day in this and other 
respects. Keep the people ignorant, and they will 
believe. What ! will they believe truth ? No ; for 
they must at all hazards be prevented from knowing 
it. Again, we ask, if the teaching of the Roman 
Church is so true, and so Divine, why is it that the 
priests are so afraid lest the people should know 
anything to its disadvantage t 

What a strange religion ! It boasts of its Divine 
origin, yet strives to conceal all damaging facts, in 
order that it may retain its hold upon the people. 
It boasts that it was founded by Christ Himself, and 



X PREFACE. 

yet it will not allow the plain commands of Christ 
to be obeyed. It " teaches for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men," a thing expressly forbidden in 
the Bible. 

But to return to my own case. I believed that 
Pius IX. was a persecuted saint until I learned 
later, that his own people, who certainly ought to 
have known him best, could not support his tyranny 
and oppressions, which may have been foreign to 
his own nature, but which he was obliged to carry 
out in submission to the Jesuits who ruled his court, 
and ruined his life. 

Later in this work I shall tell of my experience in 
Rome, and show that the old proverb is but too true, 
— " The nearer to Rome the farther from God." If 
Rome is not pure, rather we should say if Rome 
is corrupt, what can the Church under the rule of 
Rome be ? I learned, even before I went to Rome, 
that Pius IX. had for his dearest friend and guide, 
a man whose immoralities were so well known in 
Rome, that even after his death no one was surprised 
when one of his illegitimate children went to law 
with the Papal authorities for a share of his immense 
property. How could a man be a saint if his chosen 
friend was one who violated not only the law of 
God, but what is of far more importance to the 
Roman Catholic, the laws of his Church, which 
requires, nominally at least, purity in its ministers t 
And we may well ask, if, in this so-called enlightened 
nineteenth century, Cardinals can retain their para- 



PREFACE. xi 

mours and concubines unreproved, what may not 
have been done by the Cardinals of past ages ? 

We live in startling times, in which the prophecies 
of Scripture are being rapidly fulfilled. For our- 
selves and for our children it behoves us to " know 
the signs of the times," and to study them carefully. 
If we fail to do this, we are without excuse, and 
we must take the consequences of our indifference 
or our folly. I shall show in this book that Rome 
is the true " mystery of iniquity," from facts within 
my own personal knowledge, and which cannot be 
controverted. I shall even use Roman Catholic 
authorities to prove this ; for there is a vast and 
almost unknown field of information on such subjects 
which, as far as possible, has been sternly repressed 
by Romanists, but which exists all the same. In 
this field may be found statements of facts of the 
most startling character, which have been published 
(despite the Inquisition), and clearly prove the utter 
corruption of the Roman Church, not only in 
centuries past, but even in the present day. These 
damnatory facts are vouched for — not by Protestants, 
but by Roman Catholic (so called) saints ; so that 
Rome has approved these condemnations of herself, 
and, therefore, out of her own lips she is judged 
and condemned. 

What a terrible, what an amazing fact this is, 
and how seriously it should be considered by 
Protestants, especially by those who are so liberal to 
the enemy which would, and is bound, according 



xii PREFACE. 

to her most solemn teaching, to burn them at the 
stake, if she only had the power. Who is there who 
would sign his own death warrant, and hand it to 
his enemy for execution ? Surely such an one 
would be either a fool or a lunatic ; and yet men 
who help Rome to obtain the political power for 
which she clamours incessantly, are committing this 
very folly. 

The prophecies must be fulfilled. They are a 
part of the inspired word of God, and in view of 
this undeniable fact, it is amazing how those who 
profess to love and believe in the Scriptures should 
be blinded to its plain predictions. It is this in- 
difference which gives Rome its power, — indifference 
which cloaks itself under the name of a false charity, 
and which is a crime against God and man. How 
can the true Christian be indifferent to the interests 
of the Kingdom of God ? How can he be in- 
different to the true interests of his fellow-men, 
for whom Jesus died ? Oh, fatal folly ! oh, fatal 
blindness ! which can for one moment approve, evqn 
by silent toleration, that which God Himself has 
condemned. 

I think that there will be evidence of a satis- 
factory character found in this book, that there is at 
present a great stir in the Roman Catholic Church. 
Romanism is practically dead in France and Italy ; 
and except for its political power it would have been 
dead long since in Spain. In Ireland the power of 
the Pope is shaken as it has never been before, by the 



PREFACE. xiii 



Conduct of the present Pope, his political interfer- 
ence, and his many political vacillations, which have 
not increased the respect of the Irish people for his 
decisions. As it is of importance that proof of this 
should be on record, and available at any moment, 
I have gone into the subject fully. In England 
the directly spiritual — but not the political — power 
of Rome is decreasing, and would soon be a dead 
letter if Protestants were true to their principles, 
and stood up with courage for the right of every 
man to a free Bible, and to liberty of conscience. 

In America and in Canada the political power of 
the Pope is daily increasing, and I believe it will 
increase until it becomes so strong, with the usual 
result of being niore and more intolerant, that at 
last the mass of the people will rise, and once for 
all claim freedom. At present the outlook is 
deplorable. Secret societies are permitted to do 
their evil work of assassination and demoralisation, 
because they are principally manned by Roman 
Catholics and Irish, and the politician finds their 
help necessary, and therefore buys it, though at 
the expense of principle. Roman Catholics of the 
upper class are received in society, and courted 
because of their enormous wealth and political influ- 
ence. The wealth of the American and Canadian 
bishops, priests, and sisters, gives them the power 
which wealth will always give. Proof of all this 
will be found, on evidence which cannot be disputed, 
in the present work. The demoralisation and 



xiy PREFACE 

degradation of the lower class of Roman Catholics 
will also be described. Lamentable and indisputable 
facts will be gi.en to prove all that is advanced on 
these subjects. I shall feel, great as my sufferings 
have been at the hands of men who profess to be 
holy^ and demand the veneration, if not the worship 
of their followers, that it has not been in vain if I 
have stirred up Protestants, and thinking men of all 
denominations, to realise the evil and to promptly 
seek a. remedy. 

In concluding this Preface it may be well to say 
something of the painful experiences which I have 
had, since I wrote my autobiography, of the treachery 
and deceitfulness practised in the Roman Church. 
For myself it matters little, but it matters a great 
deal for others. What has been done to me may 
be done in a future time, and with far greater severity, 
to others. My case, if people would only consider it, 
is simply a carrying out of the practices of persecu- 
tion, which never have ceased, and never will cease, 
as long as Rome has power to persecute. It is 
amazing that men should be found who are willing 
to place the rod of persecution in the hands of those 
who have never failed to use it. Rome sometimes 
finds it convenient to say she does not persecute; and 
there are liberal Protestants, who are so indifferent 
to the peace and happiness of the next generation, 
that they care little for the certain results which must 
follow their present liberality to Rome. If they 
think that Rome does not persecute now, what have 



PREFACE. XV 

they to say to my case, and to that of Dr. McGlynn ? 
The matter is too serious to pass it over lightly. 

In the case of Dr. McGlynn, it may be said that 
the Church had a right to excommunicate him, as 
he had disobeyed the Church. Granted that this is 
so, but the question arises. Why does Rome ex- 
communicate at all, when she declares that she no 
longer upholds persecution or penalty ? All that, 
she tells those who will believe her, belongs to a 
past age. But if Rome excommunicates, will she 
not carry out the consequence of excommunication } 
If she excommunicates Dr. McGlynn would she not, 
if she could, take the next step, and hand him over 
to the civil power for execution .'' for the execution 
of the excommunicated person is the duty of the 
State when the State is under the control of the 
Pope. The torture and the execution of every 
excommunicated person is a duty of the Roman 
Church ; and it is a duty in which it never fails 
when there is the least chance of success. But let 
it be remembered that every insult and indignity 
possible was shown to Dr. McGlynn by this so-called 
Christian Church. His persecutors were devoid of 
even one thought of mercy, or of justice. How any 
one could study the facts connected with his case, 
and read of the gratuitous insults to which he was 
subject, and yet believe that Rome has changed 
from, or abandoned her policy of persecution, is 
incomprehensible. 

It may be the duty of a judge to pass sentence, 



atvi PREFACE. 

and of the executioner to inflict the sentence ;- but 
there never was a criminal executed in New York 
who was treated with the open insult and exultation 
over his fate, which was shown to this blameless 
priest. I have given some details on this subject 
in the present work, to which I ask attention. 

As regards my own case, the very law of the 
land has been set at defiance in order to heap 
injuries on me ; and so strong is the power of Rome, 
that I have appealed in vain for protection. I warn 
the public that what has been done to me is a mere 
trifle to what will be done later when Rome has 
all the political power she is seeking for. When 
we are not touched personally, we are very often 
indifferent to what happens to others ; but the con- 
sequences of giving power to those who know 
neither justice nor mercy, will make themselves felt 
in the end. 

I only wish the reader could have had personal 
knowledge of the difference between the way in which 
I acted towards the sisters, and the way in which the 
sisters were compelled to act towards me. I say the 
way in which they were compelled to act, because I 
can prove from their letters to me that they would 
have acted very differently if they had been left to 
their own sense of justice and affection. I took 
every care that nothing should be done which would 
cause them, I will not say any loss, but even the 
least inconvenience. It should be remembered that 
I was the founder of the Order ; and I may truly say 



PREFACE. 



that it was my personal influence which made it 
a success, so far as a success could be made in the 
face of the opposition of priests and bishops, who 
were too ignorant to realise how much the work 
was needed for working-girls, and who had so little 
respect for the Pope himself as to pay not even the 
slightest attention to his approbation. 

For years I had a very large correspondence all 
over, I might say, the world, especially in Amercia, 
England, and Ireland. Many comparatively poor 
persons had contributed to the work which I had 
begun, and I was anxious to show them that I had 
not given it up from any caprice, or without grave 
cause. I wrote to the sisters to send me the book in 
which I had kept the addresses of all my corre- 
spondents, but it was refused ; and the sister who 
refused to send to it me, said that she had consulted 
the priest, as of course she was bound to do, and that 
it would be against her conscience to give it to me. 
The Kenmare sisters had done the very same thing, 
without even this excuse. They refused to send me my 
address book ; and when at last I compelled them to 
give me a list of the names in it, they only sent a 
few. Their object was to prevent me from telling 
any of my numerous correspondents that I had left 
Kenmare, as they knew well that very little money 
would be sent there when it was known that I had left. 
Their conduct was specially reprehensible, because 
there was not even the excuse of religious motives. 
Their motive was simply selfish. What made their 

c 



xviii PREFACE, 



conduct inexcusable was that the name of Ken mare 
would never have been well known beyond the county- 
Kerry if it had not happened that the large circu- 
lation of my writings had brought it into notice 
everywhere. My name brought, and still brings, 
large sums of money to the Kenmare sisters, which 
they enjoy, but without one word of even the 
commonest thanks to the one who procured it for 
them. On the contrary, they have left nothing 
undone to calumniate and injure me ; and this is 
religion according to Rome. Thank God it is not 
religion according to the Gospel. 

I need not say that the Kenmare sisters and the 
priests and bishops, whose treacherous conduct, I 
have proved from their own letters, was the cause of 
the failure of my efforts to do what even the Pope 
had authorised me to do, were in great fear that the 
truth about their treatment of me should be publicly 
known. Rome ever dreads the light ; and this is one 
of the greatest proofs that her deeds are evil. If these 
bishops had done nothing wrong they would not have 
been afraid of my having the addresses of those per- 
sons to whom I had been writing for so many years. 
But this is not all. I notified to the postmaster of 
Jersey city, where my letters were to be sent after I 
left the sisters, but not one was sent. I know that a 
number of letters were addressed to me at the convent, 
but not one did I receive. From this it will be seen 
that the post-office in the United States is not free 
from the control of the Papacy ; for it is the Pope 



mmm 



PREFACE. xix 



who governs when such injustice can be accomplished 
at the demand of sisters or priests. 

I recently received a letter from a gentleman who 
lives in Pittsburg, to say that he had written to me 
a letter addressed to the convent, but as he had not 
received a reply, he suspected that I had not re- 
ceived it. He was quite a stranger, but he wanted 
to tell me how truly and sincerely he sympathised 
with me in my efforts to work for the poor, and in 
the trials which I had undergone in the Roman 
Catholic Church. I told him that I had not received 
his letter nor any others addressed to me since I 
left the sisters, and he at once wrote to them, and 
threatened them with public exposure if his letter 
was not sent back to him at once. By return mail 
they sent him the letter, dirty, torn, and of course 
opened. Would to God that Protestants realised 
from these things that Rome will do all the injustice 
which she dares; and that it is only want of power, 
and not want of inclination, which restrains her. 
Even the law of the land will not protect me from 
such injustices, for I never even received a reply from 
the postmaster at Washington, when I appealed to 
him. Most of the public officials in the United States, 
no matter what their private religious opinions may 
be, feel it safest to have Rome on their side, and they 
act accordingly. Perhaps their children will not 
arise and call them blessed when they have to feel 
the power of that Rome rule which their parents 
have helped to establish. 



XX PREFACE, 

Again I ask, if the bishops and others who per- 
secuted me, as I have said and proved in my book, 
were not afraid that the truth would be known, why 
did they take so many and such dishonest pre- 
cautions to prevent me from stating my case ? I 
considered that the public had a right to know the 
facts ; and most assuredly, especially after I had left 
the Roman Catholic Church, no one in it had a right 
to prevent me from justifiying my action ; but I know 
that hundreds of those whom I wished to have 
communicated with will never know the truth, and I 
am sure that hundreds are longing for a letter from 
me. It would of course have been impossible for 
me to remember so many names and addresses. If 
this book should fall into the hands of any of those 
who were my old and constant correspondents, they 
will now know the cause of my silence. But we may 
well ask if we are living in a free country, or in the 
nineteenth century ; when a person can be deprived 
of the means of communicating with her friends by 
the priests of Rome, and when the subjects of the 
Pope can thus interfere with private correspondence 
and the acts of public officials. 

I observe that some Irish Member of Parliament 
is making a great noise because he says that a letter 
addressed to him from Washington was tampered 
with. But no one will trouble himself when the 
Roman Catholics take possession of my private 
correspondence. 

I have had to bear yet another injustice. Not only 



PREFACE. xxi 

are my letters kept from me, but I am also deprived 
of all means of support, and obliged at my advanced 
age to earn my own living, notwithstanding all 
the property which I have left in the Church of 
Rome. If I starved it would matter little to those 
who are now living in comfort, on an income which 
should have been mine. I know so well how Rome 
hardens the heart and destroys all natural affection, 
and I may truly say all Christian charity, that I 
believe it would be a subject of rejoicing, even to 
those whom I have benefited so much, if I had to 
endure all possible privations. Such is the teaching 
of ^Rome. Burn, but if you cannot burn the heretic, 
inflict all the sufferings possible. And yet Rome 
claims to be a Christian religion ! 

I may add that those who wish for special infor- 
mation can always reach me by letter, by addressing 
their communications to the publisher of this work, 
who will take care that they shall all be forwarded 
to me promptly. 

M. F. CUSACK 

(" The Ntin of Kenmare "). 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY I 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MORAL EFFECTS OF THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY 

OF THE PAST AND IN THE PRESENT . . . -34 

CHAPTER III. 
THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES . -51 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE OUTSIDE TEACHING AND THE INSIDE PRACTICE OF THE 

CHURCH OF ROME 63 

CHAPTER V. 

IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE ROMAN CATHOLIC 

DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY . . . . 'J'J 

CHAPTER VI. 
THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY I02 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE HISTORICAL FRAUDS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH II6 



■■■ J "-^'^ "— " 



xxiv PREFACE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 
HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE IN THE NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 146 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE TEACHING OF THE 

CHURCH 183 

CHAPTER X. 

CONVENT LIFE 211 

CHAPTER XL 

"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM" . . , 248 

CHAPTER XII. 

SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES WHICH PROTESTANTS SHOULD 

CONSIDER 279 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF ROMAN CATHOLIC FAILURES . 30I 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EFFECTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TEACHING — ROMAN 

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES AND HIGHER EDUCATION . . 323 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE CONFESSIONAL AND THE LIVES OF THE POPES . . 366 

CHAPTER XVI. 

ROMAN CATHOLIC LITERATURE AND ROMAN CATHOLIC 

HIGHER EDUCATION 387 

APPENDIX 399 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 
"A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife." — i Tim. iii. 2. 

I HAVE been convinced for many years that the 
celibacy of the Roman CathoUc clergy is the source 
of nearly all the moral evil in the Roman Church. If 
this unchristian observance was abolished, the moral 
tone of the whole Church of Rome would at once be 
raised and purified. The enforced celibacy of the 
Roman priesthood has been, and is at present, the 
fruitful source of much crime. 

It has been fraught with the greatest moral danger 
to Rome, while the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
Church has proved the greatest spiritual danger. The 
enforced cehbacy of the priesthood would long since 
have been abolished if it was not found to be necessary 
for the support of the Church, no matter what the moral 
evil which it causes. The laity would long since have 
risen up against it, and have forbidden it, if the Roman 
Catholic Church had not kept them in such ignorance 
of Scripture and of history. Where shall we find a 
Roman Catholic, no matter how well educated, who 
is conversant with the teaching of Scripture on this 
subject ? Where shall we find a Roman Catholic who 
knows anything of the history of celibacy in the Roman 
Church ? 

As for Scripture, the fact that St. Peter was a 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 



married man, and that our Divine Lord had so special 
an interest in his family as to have made the healing of 
his mother-in-law one of His recorded miracles, should 
be in itself sufficient for every Christian. We have in 
this an evidence which cannot be disputed, that vows 
of celibacy are not of Divine institution for the Christian 
priesthood ; and Rome acts wisely in keeping, as far as 
possible, the Bible from her followers, lest they should 
ascertain for themselves even the one fact, that he who 
they claim to be the first infallible head of their Church 
was a married man. 

It is quite true that St. Paul speaks of the celibate 
state as a higher state ; but it should be well noted that 
he draws a marked line in this matter. He says truly, 
that for those to whom God has given the call to vir- 
ginity, the life of virgin love and devotion to God is the 
higher ; but he makes, almost prophetically, the plain 
statement, that he had '' no commandment of the Lord " 
(i Cor. vii. 25) on this subject ; and in fact so plain is all 
Scripture teaching on this point, that the Roman Churck 
in enforcing celibacy on her priesthood has been 
obliged to fall back on her infallibility as her only 
justification for requiring this vow from her priests. 
The other texts of Scripture which deal with this 
subject are so plain, and so well known to Protestants, 
that it would not be necessary to call attention to them 
here, if it were not that this work is intended, amongst 
other objects, to be a handy manual of explanation for 
controversial purposes ; and it may be well for even 
Protestants to have at hand all the help possible on 
any point of discussion with Rome. It is also most 
important that children should be carefully instructed 
on such subjects, and armed for future trials. We are 
apt to read Scripture mechanically, or even when 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 



studying it to pass over the significance of certain 
texts; and we do not realise all their value in dis- 
puted subjects, as I know now myself to my grievous 
cost. 

In considering St. Paul's recommendation of celibacy 
it should be remembered that he is speaking to the 
whole Church, and that there is not even the remotest 
hint that he is speaking only to priests. If, therefore, his 
recommendation has any present value, it is of equal 
importance to all Christian people. I knew personally 
a Roman Catholic bishop, the late Dr. McCarthy of 
Kerry, who told me himself that he thought St. Paul's 
recommendation was intended to be of universal appli- 
cation, and that no one should marry. This opinion, 
like many others more or less sensible, he took care 
not to express in public, as it is dangerous for the 
clergy of the Roman Church to ventilate any opinion, 
no matter how well considered, on that subject. Such 
is the miserable want of charity in that Church, that 
there are always men on the watch to take hold of 
anything which may serve to disgrace or discredit a 
" brother," especially if that brother is a person of any 
prominence, when jealousy finds an easy way to gratify 
itself. I shall return to this point later, when entering 
on some recent developments of dispute in the Roman 
Church ; and I have given evidence in my autobio- 
graphy * of the way in which the good works in which 
I was engaged were frustrated by the petty jealousy of 
ecclesiastics. 

The good bishop was once asked what was to become 
of the world if, by common consent, all men and women 
remained celibate ? He smiled, and replied that he did 

* "The Nun of Kenmare." An Autobiography. With Por- 
trait. Crown 8vo, cloth, 'js. 6d. London : Hodder & Stoughton. 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



not think it would be much loss to the world if it 
came to an end. But there was a reason for St. Paul's 
recommendation of celibacy which does not exist at 
present. The early Christians, and the apostles, were 
looking for a speedy termination of this life, by the 
second coming of their Lord. To them this world 
mattered so little, and the world to come mattered so 
much. To us, absorbed as we are in the things of 
time, all is different, and we are more inclined to ask, 
" Where are the signs of His coming ? " than to expect 
it. To us it seems as if all things go on as they ever 
have done, and as if there had been no changes since 
the fathers fell asleep. To the Christians of St. Paul's 
day, wrongly interpreting, as we know they did, certain 
of our Lord's words, it seemed as if at any moment the 
things of time might pass into the things of eternity. 
They did not ask, '' Where is the promise of His com- 
ing ? " for at every moment they expected that coming. 
Why, then, should they not sit loose to the things of 
time and sense ? Why should they sow when they did 
not expect to reap ? Why should they concern them- 
selves, or embarrass themselves with wives or children, 
when they daily and hourly expected the opening of the 
gates of the City where there is neither marrying nor 
giving in marriage ? 

But to the hapless Roman Catholic of the present 
day, who is kept in wilful and deliberate ignorance of 
the Scriptures, the real meaning of St. Paul's advice 
on the subject of marriage is unknown. He knows 
only just so much of the letter as may " kill," but he 
knows nothing of the spirit which quickens. St. Paul 
clearly bases his^advice, or rather his suggestion, on the 
subject of marriage, on the ground of the shortness of 
time, — alluding evidently to the popular hope and ex- 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 



pectation of the immediate coming of the Lord. '' The 
time is short ; " and doubtless this sense of the nearness 
of the second coming of the Lord was of no Httle help 
to the early Christian, surrounded as he was with 
temptations and persecutions. We should remember, 
too, that the expectation of martyrdom was hourly 
before the mind of the Christian of St. Paul's time as 
an ever-present hope, and that it was a hope constantly 
realised. The man or the woman who was freed from 
worldly ties, however blessed they might be under 
other circumstances, was much more likely to suffer 
generously than one who was bound by ties of flesh 
and blood. But as we have said, how can the poor 
Roman Catholic of to-day know this ? He is only 
allowed to know that St. Paul recommended virginity 
in the strongest terms, he is not allowed to know the 
circumstances ; nor indeed, if he came to know them, 
would it avail him, for he is bound to interpret the Bible 
only as the Church allows. Nor may he know that in 
the very next chapter St. Paul claims for himself the 
right to marry, as St. Peter had done, if he pleases. 
The words are well worth noting. He says, *^ Have 
we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as 
other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and 
Cephas?" (i Cor. ix. 5). Here we find the very fact 
of St. Peter having a wife brought forward, not as a 
reproach, but as a fact, and one which could be used 
as an argument why *^ other Apostles " might do the 
same thing. 

But this argument would scarcely be needed if the 
facts of history were better known. The Roman 
Church had made its claims to supremacy for several 
centuries before any attempt was made to enforce the 
celibacy of the clergy. And the history of the lives of 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



the clergy after this enactment was put in force is at 
once the best proof of its miserable results, and that 
the Roman Church, of all others, has the least claim to 
be called '' holy." 

I shall give from Roman Catholic authorities only 
some of the statements on this subject made in synods 
and councils of the Roman Church. 

There is no doubt that the canon of the Roman 
Church which bound its priests to celibacy was a 
masterpiece of human diplomacy. If it was a Divine 
necessity it would have been proclaimed as such by 
the Founder of Christianity. Admitting even that it 
was a counsel of perfection, that it was a higher degree 
in the Christian life to be a virgin than to marry, it is 
perfectly clear from the very words of Christ, and from 
the teaching of St. Paul, that it was not a counsel 
intended for all. We have St. Paul's distinct statement, 
that the Apostles, like St. Peter, had a right to have a 
wife if they so desired ; and let it be noted that a right 
which is merely a toleration, or to which any penalty 
or discredit is attached, is not a right in the sense 
evidently intended here. 

An unmarried clergy might be a support to the 
Church in a time of persecution. A married clergy, for 
whom special counsel is given in the Gospel, is the 
normal condition of the Church, and intended to be an 
example and a strength to the Church in times of peace. 
Where is the priest who dares to preach on the words 
of St. Paul to Timothy, in which he so expressly 
states the duties of the Christian priesthood as regards 
their wives ? How any Church calling itself Christian 
could forbid the marriage of its clergy, with the 
Scriptures and especially the instructions of St. Paul in 
regard to the family life of the ministers of the Gospel, 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 



is a mystery of the perversity of human nature, and 
like all attempts to be wiser than God, it has ended in 
disastrous failure. The bishop, says St. Paul, ^'must 
be blameless, the husband of one wife." What word 
could be plainer ? And then the plain practical inference 
is drawn to make the edification to be derived from 
marriage yet more clear. *' For if a man know not how 
to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the 
Church of God ? " (i Tim. iii. 5). Words could not 
express more clearl}^ or more wisely the duty of a 
Christian minister, and we shall see presently how this 
enforced and unchristian law of celibacy has acted, just 
as the Scriptures imply it would act. The priest of 
the Church of Rome, not having a household of his own 
to rule, has " not known how to rule the Church of 
God." Instead of becoming the father of his people, 
he is the tyrant of his people. It was not long before 
I left the Church of Rome that a priest high in the 
Roman Church in New York said to me, '' The bishops 
tyrannise over us, and we in turn tyrannise over the 
people." He spoke these words in all sober truth, and 
in sad earnestness. And those who know anything 
of the inside life of the Roman Church at the present 
day, know but too well the truth of these words, while 
the past history of the Roman Church is simply one 
long cry for power at the expense of Gospel truth. 

Let us look at the position of the unmarried priest. 
He is a man with all the God-given passions of a man. 
The first instinct of man is to propagate his species. 
To this end God has given him the desire to do so, a 
gift of infinite love, the results of which are of the highest 
benefit to the human race. This was God's precept in 
the Jewish dispensation, approved in the Christian 
dispensation, and sanctified in it to a degree unknown 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



before Apostolic days. The priest, being a man, 
has these God-given instincts. He desires to propa- 
gate his species, but he is told that to do this by 
marriage is to commit a deadly sin. How awful is 
his case ! God has given him certain instincts, law- 
ful. Divine, because God-given, and man says, " Thou 
shalt not profit by them. I, the human head of the 
Church, forbid you to do what God, the Founder of the 
Church, has permitted you to do." For, let it be well 
noted, even the Roman Church has not ventured to say 
that this forbidding to marry is a Divine command. No, 
it is a command only of the " Church," which claims 
a right, and — oh, the pity of it ! — is allowed power, 
through the folly and sin of man, to do exactly what 
God has forbidden to be done. 

Again, is it not St. Paul himself who has said, ^' The 
Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some 
shall depart from the faith" (i Tim. iv. i) ? and has 
he not said that one of the signs of this departure from 
the faith is "forbidding to marry" (verse 3)? and is 
there any Christian Church to which this accusation 
applies except to the Church of Rome ? 

The man, then, who is for ever at war with his God- 
given nature, and with the instincts which his God 
has given him, is not fit to be a leader of men ; and 
this is, above all, what a priest should be, and what 
God intended him to be. If he keeps his vow of 
enforced celibacy he is for ever in the misery of fear, 
lest he should be tempted to break it. His very vow, 
far from helping him, is a most terrible hindrance to 
him. The teaching of the Roman Church that his 
yow will protect him in temptation is a fallacy, as all 
history, even history according to Roman Catholic 
historians, goes to prove. How can a vow help, when 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 



it is a vow to do what God has said shall not be done ? 
He makes a vow which pledges him not to have the 
very opportunity of doing just the very thing which 
an inspired Apostle declares a minister of the Gospel 
should do. How can he fulfil the Scripture precept 
of "ruling" his family well, as the first step towards 
ruling well the Church of God, when he has no family 
to rule ? How can he have " faithful children," when 
the only children he may have are the fruit of his own 
unfaithfulness to a most solemn vow ? No wonder 
that the priest, in his despair and his loneliness, takes 
refuge in drink, and tries to forget his misery in dis- 
sipation and sin. 

The fatal and diabolical policy of his Church deprives 
him of all Divinely sanctioned privileges, and drives him 
to the indulgence of unholy gratification, binding him 
by unnatural vows to an unnatural life. One of two 
things must happen; either he keeps his vow, or he 
breaks it. If he keeps it, his life is one long misery 
of fear and self-repression. Far be it from me to say 
that all priests break their vow of chastity ; and it may 
be said that there are some men, as there are certainly 
many women, who are not desirous of married life. 
To such, remaining by choice, or a providential neces- 
sity, in a state of virginity, the grace of God is an 
all-sufficient protection against sin. But such cases 
are the exception and not the rule ; and there can be 
no possible comparison between the case of such 
persons and the case of a minister of the Christian 
dispensation who takes a vow that he will not marry, 
when the Bible, the source of Christianity, and of 
instruction for Christian people, has given express 
directions not that priests should remain unmarried^ 
but how they can fulfil the end for which God insti- 



10 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

tuted marriage, to the edification of the Church to 
which they have been called to minister. 

He would be a bold man who would deny that 
priests are intemperate as a class. It is true that 
there are honourable exceptions ; but the Church of 
Rome looks with toleration on the sin of intemperance, 
hence its half-hearted efforts in the cause of temperance. 

There has probably never been a more urgent 
advocate of temperance than Cardinal Manning, and 
to myself he said, on one occasion, when I was 
deploring the intemperate habits of Irish priests, " I 
need temperance for my priests more than for my 
people ; " nor did I take this to mean a reflection 
on the priests of his own diocese more than others. 
It was a statement of an incontrovertible fact, that 
intemperance is the besetting sin of the priest every- 
where. It is curious how this evil is condoned by 
Roman Catholics. If a word is said to imply that a 
priest does not keep his vow of chastity, no matter 
how flagrant the case of his fall may be, the Roman 
Catholic is excited to the wildest anger. It seems a 
little matter whether he knows the accusation to be 
true or not. It is the accusation and not the doing 
of the evil which angers him. And this is because 
the vow of the priest to remain celibate is one of the 
great sources of power in the Roman Church ; and the 
Roman Catholic from childhood has been taught to 
consider this vow so sacred, that he looks upon a 
breach of it as the greatest scandal which can befall 
a priest. It is a source of power in more ways than 
is generally supposed. Hence it is that when a priest 
leaves the Church of Rom.e, every effort is made to 
disgrace him in the eyes of Roman Catholics, by saying 
that he wants to break his vow and get married. The 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. II 



persistence with which false charges are continued, 
despite all proof to the contrary, is one and not the 
least serious evidence that this Church needs falsehood 
and slander for its support. No amount of profligacy 
which a priest could commit in the '' Church " would 
shock a Roman Catholic so much, or at all, in com- 
parison with an honest following of God's law, and 
the Apostle's advice, to become the husband of one 
wife. 

It needs a personal and intimate knowledge of 
Roman Catholics to understand this strange perver- 
sion of right and wrong, which has been instilled into 
them from childhood. I cannot easily forget the horror 
of a well-educated Roman Catholic to whom I was 
speaking of a priest who had left the Roman Church, 
as so many have done of late years, and who had 
married some years afterwards. It could not be said 
of him that he had left the Roman Church to marry, 
though of course the falsehood of a charge against one 
who leaves Rome never hinders a Roman Catholic 
from making it. 

It was many years after he had done so that he 
took a wife ; but when I pointed out to her that he had 
only followed the example of St. Peter, whom Roman 
Catholics claim as the head of their Church, though 
they are so very unwilling to imitate his example, her 
astonishment was unlimited, and her perplexity was 
so great, that I trust it may lead her to inquire in how 
many other things Roman Catholics have failed to 
follow the example and the precepts of the great 
Apostle for whom they profess so much honour. 
Claiming his headship as they do, they might at least 
do him the respect to follow his example. 

The confessional, as practised in the Roman Church, 



12 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

is a cesspool of iniquity for the temptation of the priest. 
It is all very well, and true, to say that the laity may 
escape danger, but most certainly the priest cannot do 
so. He is obliged, by the most sacred obligations of 
his office, to probe to the bottom of every evil thought 
as well as to the end of every act. Those who have 
not been guilty of gross sins may think the priest has 
only to hear a few of the little faults of which they 
have been guilty. 

In this case it may be said, as in the case of the 
celibacy of the clergy, that if it was of Divine ordinance, 
God would protect the priest from the evil ; but no fair- 
minded man who has read, I will not say the Bible, 
but the *' Fathers," of whom the Roman Church boasts 
so much, can assert that they ever inculcated or 
practised confession as it is practised to-day in the 
Church of Rome. I do not myself think that there 
is so much harm done at present to the young in the 
confessional as some would suppose. Of course there 
are priests so evil-minded as to ask young women 
questions on subjects on which they are, and should 
be, absolutely ignorant. I know that an English con- 
vert priest, since dead in the odour of sanctity, gave 
a young girl her first knowledge of evil in the con- 
fessional ; but from what she told me, I think that he 
did not know the fearful harm he was doing. But he 
should have known it; and I know that it was long 
years before that lady recovered from the shock which 
she received. It must be remembered that all this, 
and even worse, far from being made a reproach to a 
priest by his Church, would be considered a matter of 
duty. A priest is like a man who is always handling 
inflammable materials. He knows theoretically that he 
may be blown up some day, and that he may, by the 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY, 13 

least want of caution, cause fearful injury to others. 
Using explosive material has led to practical indifference 
to danger, and too often he pays the penalty, or makes 
others pay it. So it is in the confessional. A priest 
may not be personally evil or inclined to evil, but he 
is handling inflammable material all the time, and the 
result in the spiritual life is even more likely to be 
fatal than in the temporal. 

I must confess for myself that the wonder to me is 
not that there are so many priests who drown their 
misery in drink, but that any escape. Hour after hour, 
for long weary hours, they are seated in the con- 
fessional listening to tales either of the most con- 
temptible petty squabbles and scruples, or to sins of 
the blackest hue. Hour after hour they have to give 
the same mechanical absolution, and the same stereo- 
typed advice. Hour after hour they have to sit in a 
constrained position, often productive of terrible disease, 
and to inhale the breath of the drunken, the dissolute, 
and the diseased. Often, too, these hours have to be 
spent fasting altogether from food, as in many places 
the priest has to '^hear" his penitents before saying 
mass, and of course while he is fasting. With an 
unnaturally weakened body, there must be an un- 
naturally weakened mind. Where, then, is the wonder 
if there is a fall ? Where is the wonder that the 
Roman Church is sickened with the bodies of the 
slain, who have made shipwreck in this stream of 
pollution ? Wearied, worn in body and mind, the 
priest goes to his cheerless home, if home it can be 
called ; and what comfort does he find there ? Often 
he has a long office to say before he retires for the 
night, which must be said still fasting, as at the late 
hour when he leaves the confessional there is no one 



14 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

to give him a meal, and often the obhgation of a fast 
day would forbid its being taken. What more natural 
than that he should drink to obtain a temporary relief 
from his terrible burden, and that at last drink should 
become a habit ? What wonder if, craving human 
sympathy, and having none that is lawful for him 
to seek, he should have recourse to that which is 
unlawful. The housekeeper, the niece, is at hand, with 
the natural compassion of woman, and with the added 
reverence of a Romanist for the '' priest." A little 
familiarity, a little affectionate sympathy, and the end 
is not far to seek ; and when the priest falls, he falls, 
like Lucifer, never to rise again. 

Sometimes, too often, it is the schoolmistress who 
is the victim, and I speak of what I know. It was my 
infinitely sad lot to have been asked by an English 
bishop, and by an English cardinal, to take charge of 
a mission where the priest had ruined four of his 
schoolmistresses, one after the other. His last victim 
had a child whom she could not support, and so her 
pitiful story came out. The priest was sent, not into 
banishment, as would have been done if he had com- 
mitted any sin " against the Church," or offended his 
bishop. As he had only sinned against God, he was 
simply removed from one diocese to another, where he 
retained his rank and his honours. If such things 
are done in the green tree, what has been done in 
the dry ? If such deeds as these are done, and even 
condoned in England to-day, what will be done in 
England when the Church has the power to shield 
evildoers ? And I have reason to know that this is not 
an uncommon case. I have heard the sad tale of many 
girls, teachers, who are under the absolute control of 
the priest, who have been led on step by step to evil, 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 15 

and no hand was stretched out to save them, because 
none dared to interfere with the priest who led them 
to ruin. I have heard their weary story of shame and 
sin, and how they were consoled and silenced in the 
confessional ; for with the infatuation of Roman Catholic 
teaching they would, even in their misery, seek absolu- 
tion from the very authors of their shame. Could the 
horrors of Pagan rites afford more terrible instances of 
depravity ? And all this is happening in the England, 
and in the America, of to-day, and all must be hidden 
at the peril of the ruined woman, because the sinner 
is " a priest," and because the " Church" teaches, by 
example and custom, that it is a far greater sin to 
accuse a priest of sin, than to sin with a priest. 

I know that it will be said indignantly by Roman 
Catholics that the Church does not sanction these 
evils, but what use denials, when facts are all the 
other way ? No one can possibly be intimate with 
Roman Catholics in private life without knowing how 
they fear and silence the least word of scandal where a 
priest is concerned. A Church which finds it necessary 
to hide or deny evil which is well known to exist, must 
rest on a very insecure foundation. And it is a curious 
circumstance, that while Roman Catholics will talk 
quite freely about priests who are guilty of intem- 
perance, and seem to think it a matter of very little 
consequence, they will shrink with horror from con- 
necting the name of a priest with immorality. Yet the 
one sin is most assuredly the parent of the other. 

I might fill a volume if I related the many instances 
which I have known of priests who drank to excess, 
and still remained honoured members of the Church. 
More than one bishop and priest are at present in 
lunatic asylums in the United States, who have been 



1 6 mSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the victims of" this crime, and of still greater crime. I 
do not ask that my word shall be taken for these 
statements. It is not so long since the whole world 
was made aware of the moral condition of one diocese 
in America by the highest possible authority in the 
diocese, the bishop himself. 

The St. Louis Republican of June 20th, 1887, printed 
a letter from Bishop Hogan, of the Roman Catholic 
diocese of St. Joseph, Mo., which was brought out in 
court, and was never intended for publication ; but it 
reveals a sad state of affairs. In June, 1887, the 
Bishop had placed a German priest over an Irish con- 
gregation. The Irish people were indignant at this 
proceeding; and, as we shall show later, from Roman 
Catholic sources, there is no small fear on the part of 
certain American ecclesiastics lest there should be an 
open rupture between the German and Irish element 
in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, 
where the Church is far from being in the condition 
of religious harmony which the rulers of the Papacy 
would like the world to suppose. At last a gentleman 
interfered in the interests of peace, and the bishop was 
obliged, or at least thought it wise, to justify himself. 

His defence was that the priests of his diocese were 
such a drunken lot that he was compelled to supply 
the parish as he did. He then gives a list by name 
of twenty-two priests who were received into his 
diocese from 1869 to 1876, but whom he was compelled 
to dismiss on account of immorality and drunkenness. 
Some of them are described as " constantly drunk ; " 
one is " now going around from city to city a drunken 
wreck." The Bishop wrote : — 

" The constant shameful public and sacrilegious 
drunkenness of the three last-mentioned priests who 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. i? 



were by my side at the cathedral determined me to 
put them and their kind out of my jurisdiction. Herbert, 
after repeated drunkenness, went on a spree for a week 
in my house ; while in my house broke out at night, 
got into a house of disreputable women in his drunken- 
ness, and was thrown out into the street, picked up 
drunk, recognised, and taken into a house and made 
sober, and put into a carriage and taken back to my 
house. That evening Galvin and Kiley were told by 
me to prepare for the proper celebration of the Feast 
of the Patronage of St. Joseph for Easter Sunday. 
On Saturday night they staj^ed up all night drinking, 
carousing, and shouting. Kiley fell down, blackened, 
and almost broke his face in falling. Of course the two 
sacrilegious priests said Mass the next day ; and Kiley 
went into the pulpit and preached with his blackened 
and bruised face to the people of the cathedral. This 
was on the Feast of the Patron of the Diocese and of 
the Universal Church. It was time for me to begin 
a reformation." 

From personal knowledge of several dioceses I must 
add that this state of things is far from uncommon. 
In the western states of America the conditions of life 
are freer, and priests are more careless in their public 
conduct. I can only say that the very same condition 
of things, I have reason to believe, exists in other 
places, but hidden from public view. 

Since my arrival in America priests have often come 
to beg from me while they w^ere in a state of intoxica- 
tion, saying, that they came because it was well known 
I never refused a priest anything. This was true 
until I found out how my kindness was imposed upon. 
A priest who had treated both myself and the sisters 
most shamefully in England, was sent with a high 

2 



i8 INSIDE THR CHURCH OF ROME. 

character to America by his bishop, who wanted to get 
rid of him, and he also came to beg from me. I know 
that there are priests who are Uving by their wits in 
every part of the world, the wretched victims of drink 
and immorality, diseased beyond description, and 
supported by the poorest of the people, who have 
a superstitious respect for a priest, no matter how 
degraded. 

And the above is the condition of a large and 
important diocese in the United States, where we 
hear, ad nauseam, that the Roman Catholic Church is 
making rapid advances. Certainly if building immense 
Churches, and not paying for them, notwithstanding the 
millions of money yearly wrung from the poor, is a sign 
of advancement, it is advancing. Certainly if building 
and establishing Roman Catholic convent schools, 
which are principally filled by Protestant children, is 
a sign of advancement, the Church is advancing. In 
one sisters' school in Toronto, Canada, there are sixty 
Protestant pupils against forty Roman Catholics, and 
it is much the same everywhere. 

There are Roman Catholics who will not trust their 
children to convent teaching, but Protestants supply 
the deficiency. In Roman Catholic nations the Roman 
Catholic Church is deprived of all temporal power. In 
Protestant countries it rides triumphant. No wonder 
that the Pope boasts that he rules America, and that an 
American bishop boasts that if the people of America 
are not yet all Catholics, they are Papists in their love 
of the Pope, and in obedience to his orders. 

If Bishop Hogan had not spoken out about the con- 
dition of his diocese it might have been pointed out 
as a model diocese, where sin was unknown. Who 
can suppose for a moment that these priests, abandoned 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 19 

as they were to intemperance, were not also abandoned 
to immorality ? Would to God that the Roman 
Catholic laity, and especially men, — for it is their 
duty to act and protect the weaker sex, — inquired for 
themselves as to the real moral condition of the 
Roman Catholic priesthood. I have met many Roman 
Catholic men, both before and since I left the Church 
of Rome, who quite frankly avowed that the priests of 
their Church were, as a class, drunkards. It certainly 
seems amazing that they cannot see the inevitable 
consequences. Even according to the very lax teaching 
of the Roman Church drunkenness is a sin, though 
it is only venial Vv^hen men do not drink to the un- 
consciousness of complete intoxication. What, then, 
even according to Roman Catholic theology, is the 
condition of a priest who drinks habitually ? Is he not 
already fallen ? Will he make nice distinction about 
crime, or think it more sinful to break one command- 
ment than another ? Will he be in a state of mind 
to resist and avoid evil, and above all an evil which 
needs all the grace or the resolution which he possesses, 
even when he is in what his Church would consider 
a state of grace ? And does not the priest know well 
how safely he may sin ? The laity are so terrorised 
into silence, that it is but very rarely they dare say one 
word, no matter how flagrant his offence may be. 

As I have said, I was asked to take sisters to a 
parish in England, where it was well and publicly 
known that the priest lived in sin with his school- 
mistress for many years. As the evil was too notorious 
to be concealed, the people at last lost all faith in 
religion, and left the Church, so that scarcely more 
than five or six families remained in communion with 
it. To get them back was the one object of the bishop 



20 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



of the diocese, who seemed to me to concern himself 
very little about the character of the priest, so that the 
Church did not suffer numerically from his sin. I 
made it a condition of going to this place that the 
priest should leave before I brought sisters there. 
And here I have a right to say, that if Protestants 
choose to listen to the petty sneers that priests have to 
say about me it is their own loss. It was but yesterday 
that a Protestant gentleman said to me, "Oh, the 
priests say that you always wanted your own way 
when you were a sister, and that when you could 
not get it you left the Church." I am sorry for 
Protestants who can be so easily deceived. The charge, 
in one sense, is true. No priest can say with truth 
that I ever did any one act while I was in the Roman 
Catholic Church contrary to the orders, or even the 
known wishes of those who were then my superiors. 
If I had done this, Protestants may be very sure that 
the world would have heard of it again and again. 

But there were some points on which I was firm ; 
and as they happened to be points on which no 
objection could be raised, for very shame, the bishops 
concerned did not oppose me, though it is convenient 
now to make it appear as if I was always in opposition 
to their wishes. Certainly I objected to go to this 
place or to bring young sisters there until the priest 
was removed. I knew that the bishop considered me 
a little fastidious, and I know my action in this and 
many other matters did not improve my position in 
the Church, and was the cause of much of the unmanly 
persecution which I endured. Still my action in these 
matters could not by any possibihty be construed as 
being that of one who wished to place herself in 
opposition to her ecclesiastical superiors. But long 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 21 

experience has shown me how very easy it is to 
deceive Protestants, and how slow they often are, to 
their own loss, to realise the truth as to the deliberate 
deceit and treachery which is practised in the Church 
of Rome. If they only knew how much amusement 
is given to Roman Catholics when they accept their 
version of affairs, it would not help to increase their 
respect for that Church, or even for their own wisdom 
in such ready belief. 

I was perfectly within my rights, and within the 
line of duty as a good Catholic, in refusing to take this 
mission until the priest was removed. But, as I have 
said, my action in this and similar matters was not 
one which was likely to make me very acceptable to 
ecclesiastical authority, and of course in all such cases 
I was the person to be blamed. In this case I must 
give the bishop in question the due credit of not having 
made any opposition to my wishes. But I was desired 
by him, as the case was an important one, to listen to 
all that I could hear when I went on the mission. In 
fact, the bishop did not expect much thanks from Rome 
for his interference. It is the policy of Rome to / 
prevent the only thing which passes as '' scandal " in 
that Church, the exposure of the fault of a priest, as 
much as possible. The fault, if it can be hidden, is 
not considered a scandal. I had indeed a difficult 
position. This priest was a person of great influence 
in the town which was the scene of his disgrace 
Protestants only laughed, but there was one Catholic 
family where the matter was taken seriously. The 
last of his victims had been engaged to a young man 
of good position, and whose friends were old residents 
of the town. I believe he sincerely and truly loved 
the erring girl. It may be well believed that his 



22 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

indignation knew no bounds. If he had been a '' good 
CathoHc " he might have married her, and saved the 
Church. But great as his love had been, he was not 
a CathoHc of the type which will shield the priest at 
his own expense. He spoke out plainly, refused to 
have anything to do with the girl, and threatened 
summary chastisement even on the priest. His 
courage, however, fell short of actually inflicting it. 
To strike a priest, no matter what the aggravation, is 
a crime too terrible for a Roman Catholic even to 
contemplate. 

Public opinion was well roused, as the young man 
did not see that he was bound to keep silence on a 
subject on which every one was but too well informed. 
I had to listen to a flood of recrimination and scandal 
when at last I arrived. I did my best as peace- 
maker, and tried to bring the people back to the almost 
deserted church. I had also orders from the bishop, 
who was in deadly fear as to the view which Rome 
might take in regard to his interference with so 
influential an ecclesiastic, to ascertain all the particulars 
and gain all the proof I could of the criminality of the 
priest. The deserted church was built by a convert 
who had left it free of all debt, a marvel for a Roman 
Catholic church ; for notwithstanding its enormous 
wealth, there are few churches which are free from 
debt, — a curious commentary on the great boast which 
is made of reverence for the altar. 

The young man. never returned to the Roman Church. 
He and his parents joined some body of Protestants, 
which, I do not remember. The rest of the congrega- 
tion stayed at home. I was told by " good Catholics " 
that this priest said Mass during his every-day career 
of evil, and left his paramour in his room when he 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 23 

descended to offer up the sacrifice, which, according 
to the teaching of the Church, is of so subhme a 
character, that angels might fear to approach it. 

These good people did not know that the Roman 
Church before now has sanctioned the profligacy of 
her ministers, and that, as I shall show in the history 
of -celibacy in the Roman Church, every sin against 
chastity which a priest can commit js provided for by 
a regular scale of indulgence. But this history of my 
experience, miserable as it is, does not end here. I 
was staying with some of the sisters waiting until 

should be removed to another diocese, where 

he was received with all the honours due to his 
position in the Church, and naturally I was anxious as 
to who would be appointed to take his place. That 
also was soon provided for. I was introduced to a 
priest who was certainly more kind and considerate 
in his manner than the generality of priests are to 
sisters. I hoped we had found one who would give 
us some peace after our long experience of, I must say, 
brutality and unchristian conduct. I expressed to the 
sisters my satisfaction. 

Unhappily, it did not last long. We were in the 

act of preparing for our departure when Canon 

rushed into my room, and asked me if I knew the 
kind of priest the bishop was sending to take the 
place of the priest who had been so quietly removed. 
I was amazed at his excitement, little knowing the 
cause. 

" Why," he said, '^ this man is not long out of gaol. 
He was arrested in the streets, and locked up there 
for being drunk and disorderly;" and he added signifi- 
cantly, " he has a housekeeper." I only wish that those 
persons, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, who 



24 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

are anxious to criticise my conduct while in the 
Church of Rome, had been placed in my position for 
one hour. 

What to do I knew not. It seemed as if I was 
destined to suffer from priests, and then to be blamed 
as if I had been the cause of the trouble. I knew 
priests so well by this time, that I had not a doubt 
that the object of. this communication was to get me 
into trouble with the bishop, who would certainly have 
been very angry if I had complained of his arrange- 
ments. I felt that the bishop had acted very badly 
to me, to say the least, in not having put me on my 
guard as to the person to whom he was sending me; 
but I knew too well that the very priests who were 
trying to make me have a disagreement with the 
bishop would be the very first to blame me and not 
him. I say again it is simply impossible for any one 
who has not some such experience as mine to have 
even the least idea of the wickedness and misery of 
the inner lives of priests and sisters ; and I can well 
understand how those who have not had such an 
experience may be slow to believe that such things 
can be. 

My distress and despair can be well imagined by 
any Christian heart. I had left Knock, hunted out, as 
I have told in my autobiography, by the injustice of 
priests, and people acting under the permission and 
under the control of priests. I had come to England 
hoping, or rather feeling sure, that here at least there 
would be some spiritual good, some true religion. I 
soon found, what a wider experience has since con- 
firmed, that the Roman Catholic Church is every- 
where the same. How can it be otherwise when it 
never admits the necessity for reform, and when there 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 25 



never was a Church wherein reform was so sorely 
needed, as its indisputable history proves too well. 

A few moments' reflection made me consider what 
could be Canon 's object in this sudden com- 
munication. I was well aware that he knew, for at 
least a week previous, that this priest to whom he 
gave such a bad character, was to take the place of 
the gentle and honourable exiled '' canon." ^' Why, 
I asked myself, ^' did he not speak before ? Why did 
he give such solemn injunctions ' not to tell the bishop ' 
that he had spoken to me ? Why, if he was so zealous 
for our welfare, did he not speak to the bishop him- 
self?" All these thoughts flashed through my mind 
with unhappy rapidity, and still I did not see my way 
to act. I saw at once that if I said a word of objec- 
tion, the bishop would be sure to ask who was my 
informant ; and I never could bring myself to adopt 
the Roman Catholic custom of betraying others, after 
the most solemn promises of secrecy. In fact, a great 
deal of my trouble in the Roman Church arose from 
my having different ideas of truth and honour from 
those who were opposed to me. 

An honest man is a poor match for a rogue, even 
when he suspects the rogue ; and it was very long 
before I learned to suspect priests. I thought also 

that it was very unmanly of Canon to come 

and tell me all this under a pledge of secrecy, and not 
to go himself to the bishop, and speak to him on the 
subject. But I knew that it was always a dangerous 
thing for a priest to make any representation to a 
bishop, no matter how grave the case might be. I 

can only say that I went to only to find that 

the canon was right. The good-natured priest had 
been in gaol for public disturbance and drunkenness a 



26 mSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

short time previous, and as priests are always well 
posted on each other's affairs, I found the whole story 
was true, even to the existence of a ^' housekeeper." 
The priest was Irish, and had been all over the world ; 
but as the bishop said afterwards, and as many 
American bishops have said, if a bishop is too par- 
ticular, what is he to do for priests ? He must take 
them as they come. 

The result was what might have been expected. I was 
at last obliged to write to the bishop, and tell him that 
the whole town knew of the previous character of the 
priest, who had been sent to minister to a people who 
already had almost lost faith in God and man, in con- 
sequence of the scandalous conduct of his predecessor, 
and that the '' housekeeper " was evidently an institu- 
tion, as she had lived with him for years. I heard, 
to her credit, that she tried all she could to keep him 
from drink. But — alas for me ! — here was another flagrant 
instance of '' my inability to agree with my ecclesias- 
tical superiors." Very little was thought of the dis- 
creditable conduct of the priest, I had seen him 
intoxicated on the altar, but admit cheerfully that he 
was one of the very few priests I ever met who had 
a kind word for me, except when I had plenty of money 
to give them. If I had consulted my own peace of 
mind I should have let things go just as they were ; 
but unfortunately I thought that such men ought not 
to be allowed to administer the Sacraments. He also 
was '^ honourably removed " to a country place, where 
it was supposed his delinquencies would be less noticed, 
especially if he kept out of debt ; and for all I know he 
may be there still. 

Before I pass to other instances of the same unhappy 
kind, I may say that the priest sent to take his place 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 27 

was a 3'outh just come from college, whose ignorance 
was such as might be expected from the way in which 
he had been advanced beyond his station, and the 
small amount of brains which he had to balance his 
advancement. He was sober as far as I knew, but 
the secret life of a priest gives them so many oppor- 
tunities for intemperance, that it is difficult to know 
who abstains and who exceeds. I was also informed 
by the same " canon " who had warned me about his 
predecessor, that he had been a servant in the bishop's 

house in , and that the bishop had taken a 

fancy to him, as he had shown considerable aptitude 
for ceremonies. Some bishops will make any sacrifice 
to promote such men, as these things attract Protest- 
ants to their churches, and make converts of people 
who have not intellect enough to discern the difference 
between show and reality. 

This boy, for he was little else, thought he could 
add to his dignity by treating me with contempt, 
which at least was a proof that he was not a gentle- 
man even by education, as he might have been, if he 
was not such by birth. I soon found that there was 
little difference among the priests. Our new '' pastor " 
left nothing undone to annoy the sisters ; and I could 
occupy pages with their letters of complaints, all but 
too well founded, written to me after my arrival in 
America. For petty annoyances and petty persecu- 
tion, as a general rule, priests are unequalled. What 
else can be expected when the life they lead is con- 
sidered? This boy's father was Irish, and had been a 
common soldier ; yet he was so ashamed of his nation- 
ality that he made the most ridiculous attempts to hide 
it, as well as to conceal the humble origin of his father. 

There was another priest who lived in the neighbour- 



28 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

hood to whom I showed many kindnesses. He repaid 
me by giving me all the annoyance in his power. At 
length he got so deeply in debt, and the bishop had 
so many complaints of him, that he was shipped off 
to America, the refuge of priests who cannot be got 
rid of at home. I heard that the bishop gave him the 
highest testimonials. I know that he had the coolness 
to come to me in Jersey city, and to ask me to pay 
his expenses to Canada. I refused even to see him ; 
and no doubt he has said all he can against me in 
consequence. I must admit, however, that I was amused 
at the coolness with which he came to me for mone}'-, 
after the way in which he had treated me and the 
sisters in England. But priests are so much in the 
habit of having their sins overlooked, that probably he 
considered he paid me an honour in asking my help. 
God help those to whose spiritual necessities he has 
gone to minister ! 

I could give many more instances of the profligacy 
and tyrannical character of priests; but I will only 
mention two other cases in which evil was actually 
going on before my very eyes, and I did not see it. 
One of these was the case of the officious canon 
who was so anxious to warn me against the bishop's 
favourites. I did many kindnesses for him, but the 
influence of his housekeeper was against me. This 
woman went by the name of the ^' canoness." A great 
deal has been said by Roman Catholics about the wives 
of Protestant clergymen interfering in the affairs of 
their husbands' parishes ; but it would need another 
Anthony Trollope to describe the feats of the 
" canoness " in this line. Whenever the canon was 
absent the ''canoness" took his place, and did every- 
thing but say Mass. The curates rebelled again and 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 29 

again against her tyrannical rule. She dictated the 
hour of rising and rest ; and if they did not please her 
by telling her all the affairs of the parish, spiritual and 
temporal, she had a handy way of punishing them by 
cutting off the food supplies. As for her interference 
with the sisters, her attempts in this direction were 
ludicrous, and would have been mischievous, if they 
had not kept her, in some degree, in her place. At last 
the young priests rose in rebellion. The sisters wrote 
to me that the bishop, worn out with ceaseless com- 
plaints of the ** canoness' " interference, gave the 
canon his choice between parting with the *' canoness " 
or dividing his parish, so that he would not need a 
curate. The canon kept the '' canoness," and sub- 
mitted, with as good a grace as he could, to the loss 
of the greater part of his parish. 

If only one-half of the affairs of this sort, which are 
of daily occurrence in the ''Holy" Roman Catholic 
Church, were known to the world at large, what a 
revolution there would be. But such things are kept 
secret. Sisters know a great deal of the inside life of 
priests, but they find it best to be silent; and it can 
easily be seen that they could do no good by speaking. 
The Church alone can reform the Church, and that is 
the last thing which she can or will do, embar- 
rassed as she is by her own infallibility. To her 
may well be applied the reproach made to the Church 
of the Laodiceans, " Because thou sayest, I am rich, 
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, 
and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, 
and poor, and blind, and naked : I counsel thee to buy 
of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; 
and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and 
that, the shame of thy nakedness do not appear ; and 



30 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see " 
(Rev. iii. 17, 18). 

When I had but just entered the Roman Church, I 
was equally shocked and surprised by the way in which 
a young French lady spoke of the Jesuit who was the 
parish priest of the mission to which we were then 
attached. She talked of certain familiarities which 
she resented, and of a very pretty girl who was a great 
deal at the priest's house, helping the priest's house- 
keeper, and who I believed, on that account, to be above 
all suspicion. The girl was certainly very like the 
priest, who was a very good-looking man. The remarks 
of the French governess wxre not taken in good part 
by the ladies whose ears they reached. For myself I 
was too shocked, at what I supposed to be French 
lightness, to believe one word the young lady said ; and 
the matter ended in her being dismissed from her situa- 
tion as a gossip and a detractor. At that time I supposed 
that the French were a devoted Catholic people, and 
wondered much at a French lady criticising the character 
of a priest, and above all of a Jesuit. I soon dismissed 
the subject from my mind. It was pleasanter to believe 
that the girl was accusing the priest falsely, than to 
suppose that he had done wrong ; for like all con- 
verts, I believed that priests were immaculate, and 
that it was a sin even to suppose them otherwise. It 
took a long experience to undeceive me ; and that fact 
has made me understand how so many Roman Catholics 
have formed an ideal of a priest quite different from 
the reality, and how they will shut their eyes to any- 
thing which threatens to break the charm. 

On the day of my reception into Newry convent, a 
young priest, who I learned long years after was a 
confirmed drunkard, acted very strangely. So high 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 3 1 

was my reverence for a priest, that it never even 
entered my head that he was not sober on the solemn 
occasion. Even when I heard his sister lamenting, 
as she did loudly and periodicall}^, the misery of a 
priest who had fallen from grace, I never suspected 
that her own brother was the source of her trouble, 
and I fear that the disgrace of the family was a great 
deal more felt by her than the sin against God. 

And what has been gained to the world, or to the 
Church, by enforcing this law of celibacy ? It is one 
of those burdens grievous to be borne, which has most 
certainly caused more sin than sanctity. We know, 
on indisputable historical authority, that the result in the 
ages when Rome had all the powder which she craved, 
was that the Church which would not allow or bless 
the honest wedlock of the priests was driven to permit 
concubinage. Could there be possibly a more terrible 
charge against any Christian body ? Surely one would 
think that the results of this " infallible " interference 
with the laws of nature, and with the express direction 
of Scripture, as to the manner of life by which God's 
priests should be distinguished, would have been suffi- 
cient to condemn Rome for ever. 

Rome is ever craving for power to enforce all her 
demands. It would be well if those who are anxious 
to increase her power would ask what has she done 
when she has had all the powder she craved ? 

What w^as the state of Italy in the Middle Ages ? 
We hear a great deal at the present day of the injustice 
done to the Pope in depriving him of temporal 
dominion, but how did the Popes live when they were 
free to rule as they pleased ? Did they benefit hu- 
manity ? Did they preach the Gospel ? Did they 
even live good moral lives ? Did they reform their 



32 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

clergy ? Rather, we may ask, were their priests good 
men, who Hved for their God and for His poor ? Alas ! 
all history proves that they were a curse rather than a 
blessing. 

And what of the effects produced by the celibacy of the 
clergy at the present day ? What is its effect on the 
Church at large ? It is just what might be expected. 
An unmarried clergy must inevitably be a selfish clergy. 
It is supposed that celibacy lifts a man to heaven, and 
detaches him from the things of earth. Can any one 
who knows the clergy of the Romish Church say that 
their vow has had this effect ? Is it not well known 
that they are grasping, avaricious, oppressive to the 
poor, whose cries do not reach the ear of the world, 
but nevertheless do reach the ear of God ? Is it not 
well known that they often leave large sums of money 
to relatives, all of which has been obtained from God's 
poor, who, worshipping the ideal of the priest, know 
little of the reality. Even with all the precautions which 
Rome uses, and with all the secrecy which she can 
command, she is not able to hide altogether, as she 
could have hidden in earlier ages, the demoralised 
condition of so many of her priests. It is true that 
very little comes before the public, for the press is 
under a control which compels silence, but facts are told 
in private which one day will be remembered, and told 
in public. It is true that this careful guarding of the 
press has left the so-called upper class-in utter ignorance 
of the true state of affairs, and consequently they give all 
the weight of their influence to uphold a system which 
they would denounce unsparingly if they knew it as it 
is. They see the priest on the altar and in society, 
where he is on his guard, and they do not know him as 
he is elsewhere. They see his zeal for the Church, but 



THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 



iZ 



they do not know that he has had his hours of agony, 
and of deep and bitter despair, which he has drowned 
in drink, or driven away as best he could in active work 
for the Church which has been the cause of all his 
misery, but from which he sees no escape. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MORAL EFFECTS OF THE CELIBACY OF THE 
CLERGY IN THE PAST AND IN THE PRESENT. 

"After my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, 
not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, 
speaking perverse things." — Acts xx. 29, 30. 

IT must never be forgotten that the Church of Rome 
makes her hoHness a special ground on which she 
claims a divinely given authority. She claims not only 
to be '' holy," but to be " the " holy Catholic Church. 
And people are so apt to take her, as they so often take 
others, at her own valuation. Rome says she is 
^'holy," and the world, too lazy, or too ignorant to test 
her claims, acquiesces, and is duly impressed. 

Perhaps there was never a greater fraud practised on 
the credulity of mankind than this. Probably of all 
Christian Churches there is not one Church which has 
so little to show of the fruits of the Spirit as Rome ; and 
yet she is believed by millions to be the one Church 
which has an extraordinary record of good works. If 
only Roman Catholics were allowed to read history, 
and if only Protestants would read its pages (and they 
can read them), what a revelation they would find of 
the supposed sanctity of Rome. We shall return to 
this subject later. Here we are chiefly concerned with 
evidence on one point only viz.. that Rome is very far 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 35 

from being a holy Church. The chief ground for this 
claim of pre-eminent holiness is, that her celibate priest- 
hood are, of all those who minister at God's altars, the 
most perfect in their conduct, and the most self-sacrificing 
in their lives. And at the first glance it looks as if 
this claim was well founded. Here we have men who 
certainly make a vow which deprives them of all the 
comforts of family life. Here we have men who are, 
to all appearance, leading a life of superhuman 
self-sacrifice. And from time to time events occur 
which appear to verify this claim of Rome to a self- 
sacrificing priesthood. We need not go beyond the 
current news of the day for an example, and a fair 
one, of the way in which Rome establishes and per- 
petuates her claim to an exceptionally holy priesthood. 

Who has not heard of Father Daraien, the priest who 
has so nobly sacrificed his life in the sacred cause of 
humanity ? The admiring Protestant gives his sacrifice 
the meed of praise it deserves ; but the admiring 
Protestant does not stop to think, or does not kno\T, 
that the noble deed which Father Damien has done is 
being done every day in the year, and was done long 
before he ever thought of following the example of the 
Protestant ladies who first devoted themselves to the 
leper. For many years tliere has been an institution 
for lepers outside the walls of Jerusalem, attended by 
German Protestant deaconesses, who have called no 
special attention to their work, but have gone on the 
even tenor of their way, year after year, being infected 
by the horrible disease, and dying by inches in its 
loathsome tortures. We do not say this as an}'- depre- 
ciation of Father Damien's w^ork. But the " capital " 
(there is no other word for it) which Roman Catholic 
papers acquire out of such things makes it incumbent on 



36 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Protestants, or rather I should say on all who value 
truth, to make the truth known. Let us givchonour to 
Father Damien ; but all the honours do not belong to 
him. And yet Roman Catholic papers, and to my know- 
ledge one under the special patronage of Archbishop 
Corrigan, edited by the late dynamiter. Ford, breaks 
into wild cries of childish anger because a New York 
paper ventured to allude to this fact. 

The New York paper will no doubt be more careful 
in the future how it offends Roman Catholic sensibilities, 
by stating any fact which, however true, seems to 
lessen the glory of a priest. The simple stating of this 
fact about these German deaconesses is called by this 
(late) dynamite advocate '' a mean fling at the dead hero." 
It is ever thus that the Church of Rome supports her 
claim of exceptional holiness by false pretences. It is 
a crime, to be punished with the most severe penalties, 
if one word is said either in public or in private of 
the fault of a priest, or of the oppressive conduct of a 
bishop. New York society was ringing with suppressed 
laughter at the '' ten dollars or ten days," joke, made 
on the way in which Archbishop Corrigan punished an 
unfortunate priest who had dared to say one word of 
fact as to the way in which Dr. McGlynn was treated 
by the orders of his ecclesiastical superior. But the 
laughter had to be low, for even Protestants could be 
made to feel the weight of episcopal displeasure, if the 
echo of their mirth reached the archiepiscopal ear. 

And in the case of any priest whose name can be 
brought forward in the cause of science or humanity, 
all the glory must be given to the " Church " as the 
source of his inspiration. It matters little that the 
deed or the discovery for which he is honoured is 
common to many others. Even the least hint that 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 37 

the glory does not belong exclusively to Rome is 
treated as an injustice to that much-belauded Church. 
A hundred deaconesses who may have sacrificed their 
lives in the cause of the leper are as a mere nothing 
in comparison with the one priest who has only followed 
their example. And, as I have said, the world takes 
the Church at her own valuation. I do not deny that 
the unnatural life of a priest is a true martyrdom ; but 
there are many men, and many missionaries amongst 
Protestant denominations, who live quite as hard a 
life, as far as privation of the comforts of life is con- 
cerned, and there have been many Protestant ministers 
who have sacrificed their lives in time of pestilence as 
freely as any priest of the Roman Church. 

It is so also in the case of sisters. I do not deny 
that the life of a sister is often one of great privation, 
but there are many sisters who live far more comfortably 
in the convents than they ever lived in their own homes. 
This, however, does not, to my mind, detract from the 
reality of their suffering, for they surrender their 
liberty, which makes all else of little value to them. 

But the Church of Rome is ever making " capital," 
especially for the benefit of Protestants, out of the 
self-sacrificing lives of the sisters, while there are 
many women who live quite as great a life of self- 
sacrifice who never saw the interior of a convent. 
The secrecy and romance of the life of a nun prepares 
Protestants to give unlimited credit to any claim that 
may be made for the admiration of sisters ; and, as in 
the case of Father Damien, they do not stop to think 
how many self-sacrificing lives are spent in their own 
denominations. There are many ministers' wives who 
not only bring up their little ones in the love and 
fear of their Creator, but who spend, and are spent. 



38 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

day after day in the service of the poor ; and yet there 

is never a demand for praise of their self-sacrifice. It 

is time that all this claim to exceptional sanctity, in the 

Church of Rome, on the ground of the exclusive practice 

of good works, should be disproved and silenced forever. 

I know not whether to think it a providence, or to 

call it a peculiar coincidence, but I have had occasion to 

see a friend, the wife of a Methodist minister, between 

writing the last sentence and that on which I am now 

engaged. I had not been speaking to her on any 

matter connected with the Roman Church, but our 

conversation led accidentally to the subject of the 

indifference of sisters to the poor. She then told me 

of a case within her own personal knowledge. She 

had a servant, an orphan girl, who had been educated 

by sisters. When they found out that the poor girl 

was in a miserable state of health, the sisters would 

neither take her back, nor send her where she could 

have care and rest. One morning the girl was unable 

to rise, and my friend saw that she was dying. At 

the request of the girl she sent for the priest and the 

sisters. She begged the sisters to remain with her, 

or to send some one to remain with her until she died ; 

but they said the superior would not allow them to do 

so. Mrs. H was very willing to do all she could 

for the girl ; but she had a baby of her own to care for, 
besides all the additional work which the girl's illness 
threw on her. The sisters were perfectly indifferent. 
The girl died, and they would not even watch by her 
remains, or send any one to do so. Next day an 
undertaker was sent by some poor friend of this 
friendless girl, and she was buried from the Methodist 
minister's house ; for the sisters would not even allow 
the coffin to be brought to their convent, or concern 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 39 



themselves in any way about their former pupil. Not 
even a candle was sent to burn by her lonely coffin ; 
and Roman Catholics will know from this what indif- 
ference was shown. How different, said my friend, 
would their conduct have been if the girl had not been 
utterly destitute. 

It was because I saw so many evidences of heart- 
lessness on the part of sisters to the poor, and neglect 
of their most sacred duties to orphans, that I was 
anxious to found an order of sisters whose exclusive 
work should be for the poor. With a few honourable 
exceptions, the sisters who commenced by working for 
the poor have ended by caring for the rich. Certainly 
the rich can, and do repay them well in this world ; 
but I shall return to this subject later. 

What could be more sublime than the Roman 
Catholic ideal of a celibate clergy and an unmarried 
sisterhood, whose lives are devoted wholly to God and 
to the saving of souls ? Even the human ambitions 
of churchmen may be made to look holy when it is 
claimed that their desire is the advancement of the 
Church, and the glory of God. How httle is it known 
that the glory of God too often proves an excuse for 
the glorification of man, and that schemes for the 
advancement of the Church are too often invented for 
the glorification of the individual. One thing is certain; 
if the celibacy of the clergy is not a Divine institution 
it is impossible for it to benefit the world. It would 
need all the grace that God could bestow to enable a 
man to live the life of a celibate with his human 
instincts and desires quickened to a degree far beyond 
what is ordinary. One might say that the very virtue 
of a celibate priest actually invites temptation, and 
incites to crime. But our present purpose is to con- 



40 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

sider the result of this vow. Has this cehbacy of the 
clergy proved a blessing to the Roman Church and to 
humanity ? I can show that far from being a blessing 
it has proved a curse. I have already given some 
specimens of how men live who are vowed to celibacy. 
The fact that all breaches of this vow can be so easily 
concealed is one of the greatest dangers to the 
tempted priest. The superstitious terror which Rome 
inculcates, and which is so much used to prevent a 
w^ord being said of any ill deed of a priest, is at once 
their temporal protection and their spiritual ruin. 

Fear of exposure is one of the greatest preventives 
of crime, whether that fear is a dread of public opinion 
or of penal consequences. From this fear the priest 
is absolutely free. The bishop is the only person with 
whom the priest has to account. The bishop does not 
know everything, and the bishop is also human," and 
knows the history of his Church well, and that there 
is nothing new (in clerical incontinency) under the 
sun. I have seen a '' canon " of the Church, who stood 
well with his bishop and his brethren, sitting with 
the grown-up child of his housekeeper in his lap, and 
the child embracing him as a child would embrace a 
father. Who shall say whether simple affection, or 
something very different, prompted the caresses he 
lavished on her, or whether what was done by a child — 
I should say rather by a girl of twelve — would not 
continue to be done by the woman ? No priest with 
a real respect for the vows of his office would have 
allowed these familiarities. But how few priests have 
such a respect. I might multiply instances of this 
kind. I might quote from letters which I have seen 
from a penitent to a priest, in which there were 
allusions to such familiarities as these passing between 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 41 

them as an ordinary affair; but I have no wish to write 
on these subjects beyond what is of absolute necessity. 

The great question is how did this rule of celibacy 
work when Rome had unlimited freedom in the Middle 
Ages ? I think the world at large would be surprised 
if they knew what has been the result of the Church's 
free permission to her priests to have concubines, and 
of her stern prohibition of lawful marriage. Human 
nature is the same in all ages of the world and of the 
Church. History repeats itself The question to be 
asked is, How do certain rules work under all con- 
ditions, and not how do they work under exceptional 
conditions ? It is amazing that people cannot see for 
themselves that Rome has failed as a Christian religion. 
Take it on this one point of clerical celibacy, and what 
has been the result ? He would be a bold man who 
denied, in the face of every-day facts, that the Roman 
Catholic clergy, as a class, are given to intemperance. 
That they are given to immorality is not so well known, 
because that sin is easier of concealment. Still there 
is quite enough evidence before the world to show that 
there is good ground for believing that, if hidden matters 
were revealed, a great deal of wickedness would see the 
light for the first time. 

A priest at present on the mission, as it is called, — 
that is, a priest who is pastor of a large and influential 
parish, but whose relations with his ecclesiastical 
superiors are rather strained, and would probably snap 
if it were not that he is immensely wealthy, independ- 
ently of his ecclesiastical income, — told me that his 
archbishop employed a private detective for some time 
to watch him, as he was anxious to prove that he was 
in the habit of going to certain houses, so that he 
might have him in his power. A lady told me that 



42 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the priests of a religious order, supposed by a credu- 
lous public to be so full of the odour of sanctity that 
they can work miracles, were in the habit of taking 
her husband at night to places where she would rather 
they had taken some one else's husband. She had no 
reason for disliking these priests, nor had she ever had 
any disagreement with any of them. The matter was 
only mentioned to me as an -unpleasant fact. Nor did 
this in the least weaken her faith in the Church, so 
strange is the infatuation of Romanists where their 
priests are concerned. And yet we have the authority 
of Scripture forjudging a tree by its fruits. 

There are few persons of any intelligence who do 
not know the deplorable state of the Roman Church in 
Mexico, where for years it had full sway, until the 
people rose up at last against the iniquities practised, 
and screened in the name of religion. It is now some 
years since I saw a letter written to a lady in Ireland 
by her brother, who had gone to Mexico as a superin- 
tendent of some mines. He had married a Protestant, 
and had taken her with him. He told his sister that 
he had no hope of his wife's conversion now, as she had 
seen too much of the evil lives of the priests there, who 
lived in shameless concubinage, and kept their women 
and children openly in their houses. And Rome, tied 
by her infalHbility, to which she must hold at any 
cost, tolerates all this ; and by tolerating it proves that 
she prefers sin to virtue. 

It is well known in Rome that it was the lives of the 
priests which first turned the people against the Church. 
A whole nation does not turn against the Church with- 
out cause, above all when the nation is as conservative 
and superstitious as the Italians. Surely it should 
strike thinking minds that so superstitious a nation 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 43 

must have had some great cause for uch a stupendous 
change. It was not the caprice of an hour which 
made the Itahans infidels and free thinkers. They 
saw, at first with grief, at last with contempt, that 
those who professed to be priests of the "Holy" 
Catholic Church were leading lives the very reverse 
of holy ; and losing their faith in the Church as incap- 
able of producing good fruit, these Italians soon lost 
their faith in God, of whom they knew so little. The 
knife of persecution has no doubt been of service in 
Rome, and greater care is taken in morals. But there 
is still ample room for reform. Plow striking a com- 
mentary on the boasted holiness of the Roman Church 
it is that the fewer the priests in any country the purer 
are their lives. 

A circumstance with which I became personally 
acquainted while in Rome, showed me that opportunity 
only w^as wanted to enable priests to live the guilty and 
sinful lives which every ecclesiastical history, written 
by members of their own Churchy admits to have been 
the normal condition of the Roman Catholic Church in 
past ages. A young lady was visiting Rome with her 
brother in the early part of the year 1884. I was at 
that time in Rome, and I was asked to go and see her. 
She was in very delicate health, and at that period was 
confined to her bed. She was apparently alone in the 
world, having no relative except a young brother to 
whom she was guardian, and who appeared to have 
every confidence in her, and the tehdere^t affection for 
her. She was also a person of great wealth. 

Miss D was attended with unremitting care by 

two priests, who seemed to be rivals in their devotion. 
Both were well known in Rome, and were superiors of 
religious orders. I easily accounted for their attention 



44 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

to this lady, on account of her wealth and her devotion to 
the Church. So closely did they watch her, that they 
never left her apartments. If one was absent for a 
few hours the other remained on guard. As her state 
of health was not so dangerous as to require such 
close watching, it seemed strange to me that they 
should have guarded her so closely. She had also the 
paid services of a sister belonging to a nursing order 
of sisters. I could not help thinking that the young 
and very pretty sister who had the care of the invalid 
day and night, would have been better employed work- 
ing for the poor, and a great deal safer. 

The poor sister, when she could get a moment free, 
which was seldom indeed, used to come to my rooms, 
which were close by, and throw herself on the bed 
utterly worn out. I thought that her superior would 
have a good deal to answer for, as certainly she was 
cruelly overworked, and in a most dangerous position. 
It was pitiful to see the broken-down look on her face, 
and to note her depression and utter prostration, and 
all this was done for a lady who could well afford to 
have the best of nurses. in Rome at her service. I 
failed to see where the charity came in, or what one 
who professed to devote her life to the work of a 
spouse of Christ, could have to do with the service of 
the rich. In fact, this poor sister worked harder than 
any servant. Though she did not complain, I could 
see that she felt the indifference of her superior to her 
sufferings. In fact, this superior was too full of her 
imaginary revelations and of plans to trick the bishop, 
whom she had leftjin England, to concern herself about 
so trivial a matter as the health of a sister. Some one, 
I do not know who, suggested that I should see Miss 
D , and a day was appointed for me to call on her. 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 45 



She was in bed, and certainly looked very ill, but I saw 
in a moment that there was a great deal more the 
matter than mere bodily suffering. The poor lad}'' 
seemed very pleased to see me, and begged me most 
earnestly to come again soon. I did not ask for her 
confidence as, though I saw she was ready to give it 
to me, I thought it would be better not to press her at 
the time. Even yet, I was not prepared for all the 
duplicity and deceit which a priest will practise to gain 
an end. In a day or two, I asked the sister when she 

thought Miss D would like to see me again. She 

put me off with some excuse, which did not arouse my 
unsuspicious nature. 

These excuses were repeated whenever I asked the 
same question, till at last even my suspicions were 
aroused, and I thought that her superior did not like 

me to get intimate with Miss D , as of course all 

were looking to benefit by her money, " for the greater 
glory of God and the Church." I soon discovered that 
these suspicions were well founded. I was deter- 
mined to see the matter through, as I did not think it 

likely that Miss D had changed her mind about 

wishing to see me. At last the sister told me plainly 
that the two priests were very angry indeed when they 

found that she had allowed me to see Miss D , and 

that they had given her the most positive orders, which 
it is needless to say she dared not disobey, that I was 
never to be allowed to see her again. Such is the 
tyranny of priests, and such their power. Even in her 
own house this poor dying lady was not allowed to be 
mistress. 

The young brother, who was greatly to be pitied, 
was treated with indifferent contempt by all parties. 
He was very gentle and unassuming, full of Irish 



46 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

veneration for priests, and too innocent in his own life 
to suspect evil. I knew too well that it would be 
worse than useless to make any effort to see Miss 

D again, or to try and help her in any way. It 

need not be said that the priests offered her all the 
" consolations of religion." Mass was said in her room 
every day, special blessings were obtained from, and 
special indulgences asked, and granted by the Pope. 
At last came a grand climax. The priests, anxious to 
outdo themselves in their efforts to win her affections 
and her money, proposed that she should be carried 
on a litter to the Pope himself, and obtain his blessing 
personally. So with all possible pomp and circum- 
stances poor Miss D was carried to the Vatican, 

guarded zealously, or jealously, by the priests. 

But a few days passed when Rome was startled with 

a cry of horror. It was discovered that Miss D 

had given birth to an illegitimate child, and murdered 
it. An intolerable stench in her rooms betrayed the 
guilty secret. How the affair escaped the knowledge 

of the sister no one can tell. Miss D had arranged 

to be conveyed to a villa outside the walls of Rome, 
from whence she expected to be able to make her 
escape to some distant place. But the priests, fearful 
of losing their prey if she went too far from them, 
urged the delay till it was too late. The unhappy 
woman, without a single friend, committed the crime 
in the room where Mass was said day after day. At 
last the people of the house discovered the ghastly 
secret, and the police were called in. I heard that the 
superior of the nursing sisters used some very plain 
language about the folly of the priests in keeping me 

from Miss D , as probably if they had allowed me 

to see her she would have told me her state ; and as 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 47 



she knew that I had an extensive experience in deahng 
with painful cases, she might have asked my advice, and 
I could have had her quietly removed to a country place 
before the child of shame was born. But the priests were 
too eager to secure their prize ; and they knew well that 
a priest can soon reinstate himself, no matter what he 
does, if he has not committed any sin against the 
" Church." Sin against the law of God is a matter of 
comparatively little moment. As for the public, one 
sensation soon effaces the memory of another. 

I heard that the Pope was exceedingly angry when 
the affair came to his ears, as well he might be. These 
self-same priests had made a great deal of capital out 
of their zea] for religion in obtaining the favour of an 

extraordinary audience for Miss D . Protestants 

were duly impressed with the great care Vv'hich the 
Church has for the souls of her suffering children, 
and were not likely to notice specially that tbis care 
is most lavishly bestowed on the children who have 
most money. Even some few Catholics were shocked 
at the undeniable fact that the priests said Mass daily 
in Miss D 's room, and of course heard her con- 
fession, and knew all the particulars of her state. 

Her young brother was truly to be pitied. He had 
revered his sister almost as a saint ; and as I have said, 
he was a young man of sensitive mind, and I believe 
of truly good life. I heard that he remained for hours 
without eating or moving from the one spot, where he 
had sunk down in an agony of shame. As for the 
priests, they Look the matter coolly. They were expelled 
from Rome for a time in deference to public opinion. 

The police guarded Miss D ^ in her house until 

her death, which took place in a few days after the 
discovery of her ruin. I never could ascertain what 



48 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

became of her great wealth, or of her poor brother. I 
heard that he left Rome the day of her funeral and 
went to England. 

The Popolo Romano and other Italian papers had 
full details of the whole affair, with portraits of the 
actors. It scarcely increased the love of the people 
for the Roman Church or the respect of the pubhc for 
priests. But there are, and always will be, a certain 
class of people so infatuated with a system, no matter 
what its evils may be, that nothing will lessen their 
confidence in it. And no doubt there were Catholics 
who sympathised with the priests when they were 
obliged to leave Rome, even in '' honourable " exile. 
To a thoughtful mind it was a marked evidence of how 
Rome works. Here was a young lady of education 
and good family, availing herself of all the sacraments 
of the Church, receiving the highest favour which the 
Pope could confer on her, and living in sin all the 
time. It is this faith that the Church can save the 
soul, no matter what the life of the sinner may be, that 
has been the ruin of thousands. It may be said that 
the Roman Catholic Church does not teach this doctrine. 
Certainly it does not teach it in plain words. But it 
teaches it practically ; and it is by its works it should 
be judged in this world, and by its works it will most 
assuredly be judged in the next. 

It might be supposed that these two priests would 
have been disgraced for ever. But such is far from 
being the case. I can scarcely say how shocked 
I was when I heard a short time since that one of 
them was in New York, received, of course, with all 
honour by the ecclesiastical authorities there. Such 
honour and such reception was denied to me, though 
I had the good fortune to have the Pope's recom- 



MORAL EFFECTS OF CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 49 

mendation, which nevertheless I was told was of no 
use. The more fortunate priest had come to beg 
for a new Church in Rome. Once more I could not 
but admire the skill and craft of the priesthood. There 
are numerous churches in Rome, as every traveller 
well knows, and one of them would hold nearly all 
the church-goers of that city. But what matter ? To 
build a new church, whether wanted or not, is con- 
sidered so meritorious a work, that it will cover any 
number of sins. Thus it was that the mediaeval 
baron used to wipe away the stain of a life of crime, 
by donating to the Church, when he had no more use 
for them, the lands which he had plundered from 
some one weaker than himself The priest wanted 
to get back to Rome. It is a pleasanter place than 
exile, and has much to interest the resident. Besides, 
he wanted to wipe out the recollection of his adventure, 
and to win back the Pope's favour. But it was neces- 
sary, before he could build the Church, to get the money 
to build it. The plan which he hit on was certainly a 
masterpiece of diplomacy. 

It is what is called in England '' bringing coals to 
Newcastle " to build a church in Rome. Of course the 
Papal authorities would be pleased ; but, as I have said, 
they would not supply the money. Who was to do it ? 
The priest was not at a loss. The Irish are always 
ready to be plundered, and an appeal to their piety or 
patriotism never fails. There was not a church in all 
Rome dedicated to St. Patrick. This was easily repre- 
sented as a great injustice to the Irish nation. With 
the hundreds of churches there, somehow St. Patrick 
was overlooked. It was quite too shocking. It did 
not occur to the ever-credulous Irish that they were 
asked to give themselves a present-; but what matter ? 

4 



5o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



The priest got back to Rome. It did not matter that 
the church might never be built. The plan to do it, and 
the money to do it, was all that was necessary. It did 
not matter that there was already a church in Rome 
where there was an Irish community, and where for 
many centuries the feast of St. Patrick was kept with 
all pomp and solemnity, and that the long-estabhshed 
custom of calling this the '' Irish Church " m^ade it 
unlikely that a new church would attract its worship- 
pers, few as they w^ere. 

The priest wanted to get back to Rome and to the 
favour of the Pope, and he accomplished his object. 



CHAPTER III. ^ 

THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY IN THE 
MIDDLE AGES. 

" Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye ma}' keep 
j'cur own tradition." — Mark vii. 9. 

THERE is no question whatever that the priests of 
the CathoUc Church, in the first ages of the Church's 
history, were allowed to marry. There was no law, 
human or Divine, against the marriage of the clergy. 
We have shown what cannot be disputed, that the 
Holy Scripture, in its express teaching, approves, and 
we might almost say expects, the marriage of the clergy. 
Why should such particular instructions be given as to 
how the minister was to bring up and rule his family, 
if it was unlawful to have a family, or even if it was 
more perfect for him to remain a celibate ? The question 
seems one of common sense. We now proceed to show 
from Roman Catholic sources the origin of the unscrip- 
tural command to abstain from marriage, and the fatal 
result of being wiser than the God who made us. 

The arguments made by Roman Catholic theologians 
to defend the enforced celibacy of the clergy are amusing. 
They may satisfy the ignorant, but they will never con- 
vince those Rom^anists and Protestants who have the 
facts of history before their eyes, as written by Papal 



52 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

historians and theologians. I shall refer the reader to 
three indisputable Roman Catholic authorities on this 
subject. 1 will first mention St. Augustine, who was 
one of the early Fathers. I may remark in passing that 
it was very necessary for the Roman Catholic Church 
to put some portions of St. Augustine's works on the 
Index of expurgated books, for there are so many 
anti-Roman Catholic statements in the writings of this 
great author, that he might have proved a danger- 
ous antagonist. As regards St. Augustine, I need do 
no more than to mention his name. With regard to 
other authorities, though they are all well known to 
the learned, those who have not had special oppor- 
tunities of study may not be familiar with their names 
or writings ; and as I am anxious to make this book 
available as an authority to all, I give some informa- 
tion as to the others from whose works I quote. 

Gratian belonged to the learned Order of Benedictines, 
and lived in the twelfth century. He occupied twenty- 
four years in compiling an abridgment of the canon law 
of the Roman Church, and this is known as " Gratian's 
Decretals." He freely admitted that the clergy were 
allowed to marry in the early Church, and indeed no 
one can deny this. Thomas Aquinas, a canonised saint, 
whose name need only be mentioned, so well is he known 
as the great theologian of Rome, admits, as freely, that 
celibacy was not a law of the early Church ; and in this 
connection he uses a curious argument well worth 
noting. He says {Summa II. ii.) that the early Chris- 
tians were so much holier than their (Roman Catholic) 
descendants, that it was not necessary to enforce a law 
of celibacy on the clergy. This is a curious and 
valuable admission. It is an evidence that, in the 
opinion of this great divine, who certainly ought to 



CELIBACY OF CLERGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 53 

have known the social and moral state of his Church 
well, it had sorely degenerated. The fact was simpl}' 
that the Roman Catholic clergy lived, in his day, such 
grossly immoral lives, under a law of enforced celibacy, 
that they had corrupted the Church, and as a neces- 
sary consequence demoralised the world. There is 
indeed an overwhelming consensus of Roman Catholic 
evidence to prove that clerical celibacy was simply a 
rule of the Roman Church, and that it was not a rule 
of the Gospel. In 1564 Pope Pius IV., in an encyclical 
letter to the German princes, explains the enforced 
celibacy of the clergy as a necessity of the age. 

An evidence which is important from two points of 
view may be quoted here. The Bishop of Portus 
denounced Pope Calixtus for admitting men to the 
priesthood who had married twice. This shows that 
the abject submission to Rome of the bishops of modern 
times was then unknown, and it shows also that there 
was nothing against the marriage of priests. So common 
was the marriage of the clergy, or rather so little was it 
against the rule or custom of the Church, that in a.d. 414 
we find Pope Innocent I. complaining that many bishops 
were married to widows. The fact was that the early 
Christians were undoubtedly influenced by Pagan ideas 
in more respects than would have been supposed possible. 
When the Jesuits went to evangelise India, they w^ere 
surprised to find so close a resemblance between the rites 
and ceremonies of the Pagans, whom they had come to 
convert, and their own. They were at a loss to under- 
stand this, and were divided in opinion as to whether 
the devil, who is generally fathered with the inexplicable, 
had parodied the Christian religion, or whether it was 
the traditions of a pre-existing knowledge of the Catholic 
faith. 



54 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

It is remarkable that while marriage was respected 
and encouraged both amongst priests and people in the 
Jewish Church, it was forbidden in many countries to 
those who were dedicated to the service of false gods. 
As far as the '' Fathers " of the Church are concerned, 
they differed with each other, and even with themselves, 
so constantly, that their testimony on disputed points is 
really of little value. It may be remarked here, in this 
connection, that Pope Leo the Great, who is the first 
Pope whose writings have been preserved, excommuni- 
cated every one who received the sacrament in one kind 
only. The Manichsean heresy was then rife ; and one 
of the tenets of this half-Pagan sect was that the cup 
should be given only to the priesthood. 

It would require a volume, or rather several volumes, 
to give a full history of the introduction of sac'erdotal 
celibacy into the Roman Church ; but we are more con- 
cerned with the results of this observance than with 
the origin of it. There are a multitude of records of 
local synods, and enactments of pastorals and of local 
councils, all tending in the same direction, and all having 
the same object. This was unquestionably to make the 
Church more powerful, by making the clergy a distinct 
class, by detaching them from all secular (personal) 
interests, and by concentrating their energies, as well as 
their interests, on the one grand object. The one ques- 
tion for us, and for all believers in the Gospel of Christ, 
is, not how this regulation worked for the increased 
power of the Church, but how far it tended to the 
increased holiness of its members ? 

As I purpose in another chapter to give some account 
of the lives of the Popes, who according to the Roman 
Catholic Church have held the most awful and respon- 
sible power which God ever gave to man, I shall say 



CELIBACY OF CLERGY IiV TLIE MIDDLE AGES. 55 



but little of them at present. Popes, emperors, princes, 
and some few prelates tried again and again, to stem 
the torrent of corruption, which was ever growing in 
the Roman Church, as the inevitable outcome of the 
effort to enforce celibacy. In the fifteenth century the 
Rector of the University of Paris, who was also the 
private secretary of Pope Benedict XI 1 1., declared that 
the vices of the clergy were so universal, that there was 
little faith left in the virtue of any ecclesiastic. In the 
same century Gerson recommended an organised S3'stem 
of concubinage, as preferable to the gross immoralities of 
the " celibate " clergy. The very fact that such a pro- 
position should be seriously made, is in itself an evidence 
of the evil which is inevitable, when man tries to be 
wiser than God in regulating human affairs. 

Nor were the priests alone guilty. Gerson, whose 
authority cannot be questioned, since he is one of the 
shining lights of the Church of Rome, says that the nuns 
in the fourteenth century were as guilty as the priests 
and friars. He says the nunneries of his time were 
'' houses of prostitution, the monasteries were only used 
for purposes of trade and amusement, while the priests, 
at best, were keepers of concubines." His writings are 
well known, and their authenticity has never been 
questioned, while his position, for many years, as the 
Chancellor of the University of Paris, gave him ample 
opportunity for acquiring correct information. He took 
a leading part in the Council of Constance, and lived 
and died in full communion with the Roman Church. 
Nicolas de Clemanges, already mentioned as the secre- 
tary of Pope Benedict XIII. , says, ''that to take the 
veil was simply to become a public prostitute." 

The plea of modern bishops, that it is better to have 
intemperate priests than not to have any, which is 



56 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

acted on every day in the present century by bishops, 
who dare not inflict too heavy a censure on priests who 
are guilty of drunkenness, had its counterpart in this 
age, when it was declared openly by the Chancellor of 
the University of Paris, that it was better to tolerate 
incontinent priests than to have none. Theodric a 
Niem, who wrote a history of the Council of Constance, 
declared, merely as a matter of fact, and without making 
it a reproach, that some bishops carried their concubines 
with them when they went to make their pastoral 
visitations ; and indeed many bishops made a consider- 
able income by demanding large fees from their clergy 
for the permission to keep concubines. 

The state of the Church was such at the time of the 
Council of Constance, that the three honest men who 
gave themselves to the work of reform were well nigh 
in despair. These were the men already mentioned. 
After the Council had sat for two years, Clemanges 
declared that as the members of this "general" Council 
themselves " considered reform the greatest evil which 
could befall them," they were not very likely to make 
any effort in that direction. The contemporary accounts 
of this Council, and be it remembered that all these 
writers were Roman Catholics, inform us that crowds 
of people flocked to this meeting of the heads of the 
Roman Catholic Church. The number of ^' courtesans " 
ran well up into thousands, and the jugglers and play- 
actors were nearly as numerous. 

Every effort was made to purify the Church by 
the few reformers. Even the Papal privileges were 
sharply assailed. It had been made a law of the 
Church that the children of priests should not be 
allowed ecclesiastical preferment; but infallible Popes 
were constantly giving (for a consideration, of course) 



CELIBACY OF CLERGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 57 



exemptions from this rule. It was now sought, but 
uselessly, to cut off this papal prerogative. The eccle- 
siastics of Italy and Germany were equally immoral, 
and equally unwilling to reform. ^Cardinal Branda, 
who was sent by Pope Martin V. to preach a crusade 
against the Hussites, has left his testimony on record. 
He says concubinage, simony, gambling, drinking, 
and fighting were the occupations of the priests of 
the "holy" Roman Church.^) In 1428 the bishops of 
Angiers declared that licentiousness had become so 
habitual amongst the clergy that it was no longer 
considered a sin. The Archdeacon of Paris says, that 
he attributes to enforced celibacy and the great wealth 
of the Church, all the crimes which had made the clergy 
so odious in the sight of the laity. 

This miserable condition of the '' holy " Roman 
Catholic Church was universal. How little Roman 
Catholics, who live in the fond delusion that their 
Church has been always holy, know of its real history. 
To tr}^ to enlighten them seems almost a hopeless task, 
so deeply are they imbued with the false teaching of 
those whose very existence depends on concealment of 
evil. The same causes which worked the ruin of the 
Church of Rome in those countries where she was able 
to sin unreproved, are always at work, and sooner or 
later, every country where Rome gains unrestrained 
power will know the truth when it is too late. 

From time to time some earnest souls spoke out, 
and denounced the wickedness of ecclesiastics in high 
places. Martyrdom was the usual reward of their 
fearlessness. Rome does not tolerate reformers. A 
Church which can burn or destroy any one who dares 
to reprove the evil in it is safe for a time. But the 
hour of retribution will surely come. In the year 



58 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

1414, Henry V. had a series of articles prepared with 
a view to the reformation of the Church in England. 
This monarch preceded the Reformers in the work of 
trying to reclaim what was past redemption. In these 
articles the undisguised profligacy of the priests is 
fully described, and deplored. So terrible was the 
evil, and so injurious to public morals, that public 
chastisement was proposed to be inflicted on those 
priests who persisted in open fornication, the 
pecuniary fine, which had been the only penalty 
hitherto adopted, not being of the least avail to check 
the ever-growing evil. 

But of v/hat use were all efforts at reform, when the 
court of Rome made merchandise of souls ? Even 
when she denounced the evil she ''reserved" special 
cases, which would bring her increased wealth ; and 
thereby she sanctioned the continuance of sin in her 
own priesthood, and what was, if possible, still worse, 
she made gin a matter of trade. 

The following facts are taken from one of the most 
important books which has ever been published on 
the Roman controversy. The title of the work is, 
'' An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy." One 
great value of this work is that its author, Mr. Lea, 
shuns polemics. There is not one word of contro- 
versy, or of anything approaching to it, in the whole 
work from end to end. It is simply an historical 
resume of facts bearing on the question of the celibacy 
of the clergy. 

In the second place, the work has been compiled 
from authentic documents, which, though they are 
scarce, are nevertheless known to scholars, and are 
accessible in such libraries as make a speciality of 
rare works. In every case the reference is given to 



CELTBACY OF CLERGY LV THE MIDDLE AGES. 59 

the authority from which each statement is taken. 
Roman Catholics have not even attempted to answer 
this book. In fact, silence in regard to it is their best 
policy, as all the statements are taken from Roman 
Catholic sources, and many of them from the published 
decrees of episcopal synods in all ages of the Church. 
How any honest man could read this book, and still 
call the Roman Church " holy," is past comprehension. 

But it need scarcely be said that books like this, 
written for the student, are not easily accessible to 
the general public, the price and other causes limiting 
the circulation ; and it must be borne in mind that if a 
priest discovered that any Romanist had been studying 
Mr. Lea's book he would certainly give him a severe 
penance, and strictly forbid him to read another 
word of the volume. The truth about the Roman 
Church, whether historical or social, is the last thing 
which the Church can afford to have known. There is 
a curious little tract, printed in Cologne in 1505, with 
the approbation of the faculty, which is directed against 
concubinage in general, but particularly against that 
of the priests. Its laborious accumulation of authorities 
to prove that licentiousness is a sin is abundant 
evidence of the existing demoralisation, while the 
practices which it combats of guilty ecclesiastics 
who were in the habit of granting absolution to each 
other, shows how easily the safeguards with which the 
Church had sought to surround her ministers were 
eluded. 

The degradation of the priesthood, indeed, can 
easily be measured when, in the little town of Hof, in 
Vogtland, three priests could be found defiling the 
sacredness of Ash Wednesday by fiercely fighting 
over a courtesan in a house of ill-fame, or when 



6o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Leo. X., in a feeble effort at reform, was obliged to 
argue that systematic licentiousness was not rendered 
excusable because its prevalence amounted to a custom, 
or because it was openly tolerated by those whose 
duty it was to repress the evil. In fact, a clause in the 
Concordat with Francis I. in 15 16, renewing and en- 
hancing the former punishments for public concubinage, 
would almost justify the presumption that the principal 
result of the rule of celibacy was to afford to the officials 
a regular revenue derived from the sale of licenses to 
sin. The old abuse, which rises before us in every age 
from the time of Damiani to Hildebrand, and which, 
since John XXII. had framed the tariff of absolutions for 
crime, now well known as the ''Taxes of the Apostolic 
Penitentiary," had the authority of the papacy itself to 
justify it. In this curious document we find that a con- 
cubinary priest could procure absolution for less than a 
ducat, "in spite of all provincial and synodal constitu- 
tions;" while half a ducat was sufficient to absolve for 
incest committed with a mother or a sister. 

That no concealment was thought necessary, and 
that sensual indulgence was not deemed derogatory 
in any way to the character of a Christian prelate, may 
be reasonably deduced from the panegyric of Gerard 
of Nimeguen on Philip of Burgundy, grand-uncle of 
Charles V., a learned and accomplished man, who 
filled the important see of Utrecht from 15 17 to 1524. 
Gerard alludes to the amorous propensities and 
promiscuous intrigues of his patron without reserve ; 
and as his book was dedicated to the Archduchess 
Margaret, sister of Charles V., it is evident that he 
did not feel his remarks to be defamator3^ The good 
prelate, too, no doubt represented the convictions of a 
large portion of his class, when he was wont to smile 



CELIBACY OF CLERGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 6i 

at those who urged the propriety of ceUbacy, and to 
declare his beHef in the impossibiHty of chastity among 
men who, Hke the clergy, ''were pampered with high 
living and tempted by indolence." Those who pro- 
fessed to keep their vows inviolate he denounced as 
hypocrites of the worst description ; and he deemed 
them far worse than their brethren, who sought to avoid 
unnecessary scandal by keeping their concubines at 
home. 

Even this reticence, however, was considered un- 
necessary by a large portion of the clergy. In 15 12, 
the Bishop of Ratisbon issued a series of canons, in 
which, after quoting the Basilian regulations, he adds 
that many of his ecclesiastics maintain their concubines 
so openly that it would appear as though they saw 
neither sin nor scandal in such conduct, and that their 
evil example was the efficient cause of corrupting the 
faithful. In Switzerland the same abuses were quite 
as prevalent, if we may believe a memorial presented 
in 1533 by the citizens of Lausanne, complaining of 
the conduct of their clergy. They rebuked the incon- 
tinence of the priests, whose numerous children were 
accustomed to earn a living by beggary in the streets ; 
but the canons were the subject of their especial 
objurgation. The dean of the chapter had defied an 
excommunication launched at him for buying a house 
near the church in which to keep his mistress ; others 
of the canons had taken to themselves the wives of 
citizens and refused to give them up ; but the quaintest 
grievance of which they had been guilty was the injury 
w^hich their competition inflicted on the public brothel 
of the town. What was the condition of clerical 
morality in Italy may be gathered from the stories of 
Bishop Bandello, who, as a Dominican and a prelate, 



62 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

may fairly be deemed to represent the tone of the 
thinking and educated classes of society. The cynical 
levity with which he relates scandalous tales about 
monks and priests, shows that in the public mind 
sacerdotal immorality was regarded almost as a matter 
of course. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE OUTSIDE TEACHING AND THE INSIDE 
PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

" In vain do lhe\' worship Me, teaching for doctrines the command- 
ments of men."— Mark vii. 7. 



I 



T can scarcely be a matter of surprise that the 
members of a Church which at least discourages the 
study of history, and which forbids the unrestrained 
reading of the Bible, should be in ignorance of the true 
history of the Church to which they belong. But this 
ignorance is by no m.eans confined to members of this 
Church, which has so much reason to dread the light of 
truth. There are very few persons who make a careful 
and exhaustive study of any subject, unless compelled to 
do so by special circumstances ; and to the vast multi- 
tude, books, which would give the information necessary 
to form an unbiassed opinion, are not easily accessible, 
even if the general public had the leisure to peruse them. 
But this need not be a hindrance to the most accurate 
knowledge of the past history of this strange world of 
ours. Compendiums of history or of general informa- 
tion may be had, and are within reach of the purse 
and the leisure of all ; nor is it by any means difficult 
for the ordinary reader to judge as to the veracity of 
the compiler. A general honesty or dishonesty of 
purpose makes itself apparent at the first glance to an 



64 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

intelligent mind. Prejudice defeats itself by its very 
manifestation. After reading a few pages of any work 
of importance the reader would do well to ask himself, 
Is this writer worthy of my confidence ? There are 
certain names which are a guarantee for honour and 
honesty, and there are men on whose statements we 
may rely with every confidence. But there is one plain 
and obvious test of accuracy. 

If a well-known Protestant writer quotes from recog- 
nised authorities, we may be sure that a respect for 
his own reputation will make his quotations accurate, and 
therefore reliable. We have used the word Protestant, 
not without consideration. Unhappily, Roman Catholic 
writers, as we shall prove later, are on many points 
absolutely unreliable, and persist in historical mis- 
quotations, and in the use of authorities long since 
discarded as forgeries, even by some of their own 
writers. We have, then, in the works of reliable 
authors, a ready means of obtaining correct knowledge 
of any subject of which they treat ; and we may enjoy, 
at their expense of brain and labour, what we could 
not otherwise obtain for ourselves. 

I am very well aware that Roman Catholics will 
deny that their Church discourages the study of history, 
and forbids the indiscriminate reading of the Bible. 
But I shall prove, from their own ecclesiastical enact- 
ments, that such is the case. 

It is dishonest, and unworthy of a man of common 
intellect to contradict, or try to explain away, the plain 
statements of the heads of his Church. If a Roman 
Catholic denies or tries to explain away the doctrines of 
his Church he is simply a Protestant, and he does this 
either because he is ashamed of these doctrines, or 
because he is ignorant of them. There are, in fact, 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 65 

more Protestants in this sense of the word in the 
Roman Church than is generally supposed. The truth 
is, that some of the doctrines and practices of the 
Church of Rome are so monstrous, that when Roman 
Catholics of intelligence are brought face to face with 
them, and their necessar}^ consequences, they are 
aghast with shame and amazement, and have no re- 
source but denial of their own creed. For example, 
the Roman Catholic Church teaches plainly and un- 
deniably in her catechisms that all Protestants, except 
in cases of " invincible ignorance," will be damned, no 
matter how good their lives may be. A Romanist 
brought face to face with this monstrous doctrine is 
heartily ashamed of it, and denies it. A priest who 
is faced with it by a Protestant inquirer or controver- 
sialist tries to minimise it. But of what use ? The 
fact remains the same. 

The doctrinal teaching of the catechism cannot be 
altered, even to deceive Protestants or anxious inquirers. 
The decrees of the Church and the decisions of Councils 
remain. But there are so many people in the world 
who are too lazy to investigate for themselves, and 
who take their information at second hand, with little 
inquiry as to the source from Vv^hich it has come, that 
they are easily deceived. The Romanist will tell his 
Protestant friend that he has " asked the priest," and 
that the priest has assured him "it is all a mistake;" 
and the Protestant friend goes to his better enhghtened 
friend, and assures him that "the priest ought to know 
best, and that he has said that the Roman Church does 
not teach that all Protestants will be damned." And so 
the matter ends. The Protestant is thoroughly and de- 
liberately deceived, not having access to Roman Catholic 
catechisms or theologians which teach this doctrine. 

5 



66 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

When Galileo was compelled by the infallible Church 
to swear to what he knew was a lie, he did so, and 
let us pity him while we blame ; but he had, for all 
that, his '' mental reservation," a resource allowed and 
indeed approved by Jesuit theology, as we shall see 
presently from their own writings. 

Condemned as he was to lie, not only in the name 
of God, but in the name also of the blessed Virgin, or 
to bear punishment for telling the truth, he did what 
thousands have done before and since ; he believed in 
truth, but submitted to brute force. 

When Pius IX., or, as he might well be called, Pius 
the ambitious, got himself proclaimed ''infallible," in 
spite of the ''infallible" teachings to the contrary of 
his infallible predecessors, there were many bishops, 
and thousands of the laity, who revolted against this 
new doctrine, which had not been " delivered to the 
saints," and which clearly came under the Apostolic ban, 
since St. Paul has declared that if even an angel from 
heaven should preach any other Gospel to the world, 
than that which he had preached, he would be accursed. 
It is indeed marvellous how many curses this Church 
of Rome, which is the Church of cursing for others, 
has brought on herself in her, let us hope, unconscious 
impiety. 

When the doctrine of the personal infallibility of 
the Popes past, present, and to come, was proclaimed 
as being as obligatory on the belief of all Romanists 
as the doctrine of the existence of God Himself, there 
were, as I have said, thousands of men who would 
have none of it. These men were, by birth and by 
education, Roman Catholics ; they had all the attach- 
ment to their creed and to their religion which is the 
natural consequence of inheriting it as a birthright. 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 67 

A choice had to be made between accepting a new 
article of faith, and the abandonment of the Church of 
Rome. These men could scarcely be expected to 
understand that if they opposed the dogma, it was 
the Church which had left them, and not they who 
had left the Church. But that Church, with a wisdom 
which can scarcely be called Divine, considering the 
use which is made of it, solved the difficult problem 
in her usual convenient fashion. Confessors were told 
not to ask troublesome questions, but to give absolution 
to all who might ask it, if they did not positively 
declare their refusal to accept the new creed ; and so 
the difficulty was wisely, if not honestly, tided over for 
the time. 

If Rome had the temporal power for which she so 
ardently craves, these recalcitrant children of the 
Church would have had a short shrift and a fiery 
grave ; but it was deemed, above all things, advisable 
to have an appearance of unanimity in acceptance of 
this new departure from the faith once delivered to 
the saints. It matters little to Rome whether this 
unanimity is secured by force or fraud, so that it is 
obtained. The eyes of Europe were on the Vatican 
Council at that moment to note every difficulty. The 
ubiquitous and inquisitive nineteenth century reporter 
was abroad in the land. An open declaration of revolt 
or objection was, above all things, to be dreaded and 
avoided ; and it was avoided. Future generations will 
read with great edification of the " marvellous unani- 
mity " of acceptance which greeted this proclamation of 
the Pope's infallibility ; and this " fact " will be appealed 
to as another note of the Church's unity, and as another 
proof of its Divine character, and, above all, of the 
wisdom of the Pontiff, and his special enlightenment by 



68 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



the Holy Ghost, in proclaiming this new departure in 
faith. 

The young men who will be educated in Roman 
Catholic colleges, and young women educated by 
Roman Catholic sisters in coming years, will not be 
allowed to read any history of the times which has 
not been carefully expurgated of those facts which refute 
Papal" Infallibility ; and so the lie will continue to be 
believed, and will be handed down to posterity, in the 
name and for the honour of the God of Eternal Truth. 

Silence as to the existence of known evil has always 
been, and always will be, the price of peace in the 
Roman Church. It is not unjust to that Church to 
say this, because it is true ; and it can never be 
unjust to make the truth known in such cases, for 
eternal justice demands it. Why should evil be con- 
doned and concealed ? Do we not become participators 
in evil when we conceal the evildoer from the just 
punishment of his crime ? What government on the 
face of the earth would demand from its subjects 
that evildoers should be protected in their crime by 
silence ? What government would condemn the ex- 
poser of evil, and let the doer go free ? And yet this 
is done every day, and has been done for centuries by 
the Church of Rome. A careful study of history will 
prove that this, sad as it is, is an indisputable historical 
fact. A little knowledge of the inside life of the Roman 
Church will prove it to be an every-day occurrence. 
My own history proves it. If I had been silent as to 
the commission of evil, I might still be an honoured 
member of the Church of Rome, but I should be this 
at the cost of self-respect and conscience. 

I have seen a priest drunk at the altar; I have 
seen a priest who had been guilty of the ruin of four 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 69 

of his school-teachers removed to another diocese, but 
only to be welcomed there, and never the worse thought 
of for his sin, or the scandal he gave, public as it 
was. But if one dared to speak of it publicly, that 
indeed was a crime too terrible for forgiveness. 

My experience of the Church of Rome is, that the 
only sin for which there is no forgiveness is to condemn 
evil, and the only fault for which there is no pardon is 
to try to work for the good of the poor and suffering, 
unless this work is done in a way which will bring 
temporal advantage to ecclesiastics. Has not Dr. 
McGlynn boldly and publicly stated that the priest who 
puts the largest sum of money in the bishop's Prayer 
Book when he comes to the priest's house, is the best 
beloved of those men who profess to be the only true 
followers of Him who had not where to lay His head ? 

I have seen a priest in Kenmare lay himself full 
length on a convent lounge, and put his head in the lap 
of a sister who was sitting on it, and who dared not 
condemn the outrage, because of the position which 
the priest held. She could only express her unutter- 
able disgust and loathing of his drunken familiarities 
by her expression of contempt and hatred, and by 
not paying the very least attention to him as he lay 
there. I do not say that such scenes are common in 
convents, but I know such things are not altogether 
uncommon, though I have said many times in public, 
and say again, that as far as my experience goes, 
sisters are moral, and few priests would dare to 
approach them for immoral purposes. 

The irresponsible power of the bishop over the 
priest, and the irresponsible power of the superior 
of the convent over the sisters, is the source of fearful 
evil. The sister to whom this outrage was offered, for 



7o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

I can only call it an outrage, had already felt the 
weight of the tyrannical rule of an evil-tempered and 
cruel superior ; and she knew well that if she said one 
word of the conduct of a favourite, her position, which 
was already harder than she could bear, would have 
been made intolerable. It is certainly very convenient 
for the doers of evil to feel sure that their deeds of 
darkness will be concealed ; and we may add that this 
compulsory system of concealment, though it may for a 
time appear to be a strength to the Church, becomes 
eventually the cause of its decay. 

There is another source of temporary strength as 
well as of eventual weakness in the Roman Church, 
and this is found in a servile press, which dares not 
even mention the shortcomings of priests, unless they 
are so extremely notorious as to compel attention; 
and even then the subject is dropped with an alacrity 
which should at least arouse the suspicions of those 
who are not aware of the motive for this suppression. 
If the Roman Church herself denounced and punished 
the sin of her priests or of her subjects, there would 
not be so much cause for blame. But this is far from 
being the case. Evil is weighed not by its real sinful- 
ness, but by its effects on the ''Church." Have we 
not daily examples of this ? Does not the whole world 
know that the present Duke of Aosta obtained the Pope's 
permission to commit incest for the sum of $50,000 ? 
This was at the time a matter of public notoriety ; 
but I doubt if there was one nev/spaper in the United 
States of America which would have dared to publish 
a criticism on this Papal permission to sin, such 
is the power of the Church to protect evil. Public 
opinion, which is in all governments the great safeguard 
of hberty, and the great protection of good government, 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 71 

is non-existent wherever the Church of Rome has 
power. 

The cesspool of evil must not be stirred ; the 
festering sore must not be probed ; and the inevitable 
result is rottenness and corruption. In fact, the idea 
that a priest cannot sin was at one time so firmly 
believed in Ireland, the only country in the civilised 
world which held far into this century to papal super- 
stitions, that no matter what a priest did he was 
exempt from criticism. No matter how sinful the deed 
might be, it was supposed that the fact that the sinner 
was a priest excused it ; and the crime of accusing a 
priest of a sin, no matter how plain the evidence might 
be, was made to appear so terrible that he would be a 
brave man indeed who would peril his eternal interest 
by even a passing remark, and it may be added, thaf 
his temporal interests would not fail to suffer also. 

Instead of sin being considered more sinful if the 
defilement was in the sanctuary, it was held practically 
to be just the reverse. There are certainly some things 
in which Rome keeps to her proud boast of never 
changing. Burdened with the incubus of her infalli- 
bility, she must perish sooner than save herself by 
reform ; and for all practical purposes she has perished 
in every European country where she once reigned as 
a queen, save only in unhappy Ireland. Yet even in 
Ireland there are symptoms that her power is not what 
it was, and even there she must temporise to rule. It 
was the proud boast of Pius IX. that America was the 
only country where he could be a king, and the boast 
unhappily is but too well founded. But America will find 
out, though it may be through loss of her liberties, what 
Rome, and Italy, and France have discovered long since 
— that Rome and freedom cannot exist in the same 



7^ INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



State. The reins of ecclesiastical government are held 
loosely at present in the United States, and the whip 
of persecution is hidden away under the flatteries of 
a priesthood trained to diplomacy ; but the time for 
tightening the reins will come, and the time for using 
the whip will follow.] Let it be said once more, Rome 
cannot change. Her very existence is bound up in 
her infallibility. When the Romish hierarchy has 
anything to gain by flattery and diplomacy, when she 
cannot persecute because she cannot command the 
secular power to do her bidding as she did in the 
days when she burned Joan of Arc at the stake, for 
the love of God, and burned Bruno at the stake, in 
Rome, to show her appreciation of intellectual freedom, 
then she speaks softly to the confiding heretic. She 
throws the dust of her flatteries in his eyes, until she 
can place the fetters of her power on his hands. And 
she finds fools who will listen to her, some for love of 
that political power which she claims a right to exercise, 
by right of the position she claims of supreme ruler 
of all the affairs of human life. (The greedy politician 
accepts the help, which, appreciating his greed, she 
offers so graciously. Why should he not use her for 
his purpose ? Why, indeed ? But in his infatuated 
blindness he fails to see that she is using him for 
her purposes, until she can crush him at her pleasure.) 
Men who care for neither pohtics nor science, but 
who are impressed by power and position, are the 
easy prey of this powerful Church. They are freely 
applauded for their " liberality " by a Church which 
will deprive them of liberty the very hour in which 
she has attained, through false liberality, the power 
to crush all liberty except that of those who submit 
abjectly to her ruling in all matters temporal and 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 73 

spiritual. The struggle between the human race and 
the power of Rome has never ceased since she took 
on herself to proclaim to a subservient world that her 
rights were quite as much temporal as spiritual, the 
words of her Divine Master, of Him whom she claims to 
be her Master, notwithstanding. She claims a power 
which Christ Himself has expressly declared that His 
Church should not exercise. In all the plenitude of her 
rule in the Middle Ages, when Popes made and unmade 
kings and emperors, in all the poverty of her decadence, 
when even her own subjects would have none of her 
rule, the Popes continued the same cry, " My kingdom 
must be of this world." CPur Divine Lord sent forth 
His disciples without scrip or staff; the Popes cannot 
maintain the power which they profess to derive from 
Him without crowns and palaces. How ghastly the 
contrast between Christ poor and humble, and the 
Popes crowned and enthroned. If there was no other 
evidence against the Roman Church but only her failure 
in following the Master whom she professes to serve, 
this alone should be sufficient. ' 

And what has been the result of all this demand for 
earthly power, and pomp, and authority ? Let the 
history of the Popes of Rome tell the miserable tale. 
It is no wonder that Rome is afraid of history, that 
Cardinal Manning, a churchman of churchmen, has 
uttered these memorable words : '' An appeal to history 
is a treason to the Church." What, are we to abandon 
our very senses, as well as our God-given reason, to 
the Church ? And what does this Church offer us in 
return ? A certainty of salvation, if we can only bring 
ourselves to believe that her contradictory creed is 
divinely inspired, that the faith once delivered to the 
saints may be added to at the convenience and caprice 



74 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

of ^ infallible" sinners, whose lives were too often a 
disgrace to our common humanity. 

I am about to show that the lives of these infallible 
Popes, who have taken on themselves to remodel the 
Gospel, to abridge the commandments, to retain or to 
hold the soul from bliss or woe, have been so scanda- 
lous, that the much-decried Henry VIII. was a very 
model of virtue in comparison. But even as the earth 
moved in its divinely appointed course despite the oppo- 
sition of ignorant Cardinals and jealous Popes, so also 
the facts of history remain to confound the pride of a 
Church which claims to sit as the queen of virtue, and 
desires that all shall call her holy despite her utter 
corruption, and her persistence in denying it. Of her 
truly it may be said, " Thou sayest I am rich, and 
increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and 
knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and 
poor, and blind, and naked." In vain have the very 
saints of the Church of Rome, who have been saints 
not because they belonged to her, but because they 
abhorred her iniquities, called on her to repent. In 
vain did a Francis reproach the Church with her love 
of riches, or a Catherine of Siena cry out against the 
corruption of her priests and Popes. All has been in 
vain, and will be so until she has fulfilled the measure 
of her crimes, and ended the term of the Divine patience 
towards her iniquities. 

I am very well aware that these words of truth 
and soberness will not be acceptable to those whose 
evil deeds are denounced, nor to those who desire 
peace at the cost of principle. Such people are the 
curse of humanity. Under the cloak of charity they 
are guilty of the most serious breach of charity. Those 
who support the evildoer^ whether by silence when 



OUTSIDE TEACHING AND INSIDE PRACTICE. 75 

speech is a duty, or by assent which hes perilously 
near consent, are alike guilty. 

It needs some moral courage to stand for the right 
when all the powers of evil are prepared to make us 
suffer for it. Why should Rome be so afraid of facts ? 
Why should she be so afraid of knowledge ? Why, if 
her cause is so sure and so Divine, should she be so 
afraid of the least criticism, or the least independent 
inquiry ? It is a noteworthy fact that Roman Catholics 
are the only religious body who get angry when the 
tenets of their Church are made the subject of discus- 
sion. Other religious denominations can discuss their 
respective creeds without excitement or acrimony. But 
one word of disapproval sets the Romanist in a flame 
of anger and excitement, and leaves no hope of calm 
and judicial investigation. 

And the same anger and excitement may be observed 
in the discussion of any scandal which may arise. The 
members of other Churches will quietly discuss the 
circumstances of any discreditable conduct on the part 
of a minister of their creed. But their creed does not 
depend for its acceptance on the personal infallibility of 
any individual. It is not so in the Roman Church. If 
the most trifling event is commented upon in which a 
priest or bishop has acted, even unwisely, though the 
action may not have been criminal, the person who 
dares even to allude to the matter is at once denounced 
as an enemy of the Church. It would be amusing, 
if it were not sad, to observe the conduct of Roman 
ecclesiastics in regard to those who leave their Church. 
They may be pardoned for condemning them to eternal 
perdition, as their creed teaches them to do this ; but 
where is the tender charity of Christ towards those 
whom they believe to be in error? Where is the 



76 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

desire to reclaim the fallen ? Where is the hand of 
the Shepherd stretched out to recall the wandering 
sheep ? Where, I may rather ask, is the Christianity ? 
There is no convert who has left the Roman Church 
who has not been the victim of the most outrageous 
reviling, and often of the most carefully elaborated 
calumnies. Where does Christianity come in when 
such is the regular practice of Rome ? What claim 
has a Church to be called the '' Holy " Church when 
it acts as if it could not exist without the support of 
lying and defamation ? 



CHAPTER V. 

IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE ROMAN 
CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 

"Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious : and he 
that believeth on Him shall not be confounded." — I Peter ii. 6. 

CHRIST is the chief corner stone of the Christian 
Church. The dogma of the infaUibility of the 
Church of Rome is its sole support. Deprived of 
this doctrine the whole fabric falls to the ground. If 
Rome is not infallible she descends at once to the level 
of the sects above which she exalts herself, and which 
do not profess to be infallible in the sense in which 
Rome claims infallibility. Nothing is ever gained for 
the cause of truth by mistaking or misrepresenting the 
case of an adversary. Rome does this without hesi- 
tation, as when she teaches that Protestants are infidels, 
and have no religion ; and that she does teach this 1 
shall give proof from her own mouth. 

But in order to understand the subject thoroughly, 
and to realise its immense controversial importance, we 
must ask what Rome means by her claim of infallibility, 
and how she exercises this claim. We shall give the 
very words of the Roman catechism as taught by the 
authorities of the Roman Church ; and she cannot 
certainly refuse to accept her own authorised teaching. 

We find in a Catechism of Christian Doctrine (note 



78 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the exact expression), published with the special appror 
bation of Cardinal Gibbons, and approved January 3rd, 
1888, that the following definition of the Pope's infalli- 
bility is given : — 

" Q. What power had St. Peter as supreme head of 
the Church ? 

^' A. Peter had the power to govern the whole Church 
of Christ, the pastors, and the faithful, make laws for 
them, and enforce these laws. 

" Q. What special gift did Christ ask of His heavenly 
Father for St. Peter, as the teacher of His whole 
Church ? 

" A. Christ asked of His heavenly Father to bestow 
upon St. Peter the special gift of teaching infallibly 
His whole doctrine. ' I have prayed for thee,' said our 
Divine Saviour to St. Peter, ^ that thy faith fail not ; 
and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren ' 
(Luke xxii. 32)." 

Now for a sample of special pleading this is certainly 
unique. Everything is taken for granted ; nothing is 
proved ; the word " confirm " is used instead of the 
word "strengthen," another evidence of how Rome, 
when she appeals to Scripture, changes its meaning to 
serve her purpose. But even as the text is quoted 
by Rome, there is not one word in it to support the 
monstrous assertion that '' Christ asked for Peter the 
special gift of teaching infallibly His whole doctrine." 
There is not even anything approaching such an ex- 
pression ; but Roman Catholic children who are taught 
this Catechism are not allowed to reason or discuss 
the matter. Their duty begins and ends with learning 
the words of the Catechism, and also, let it be well 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 79 



noted, of believing that whatever interpretation is put 
on the words of Scripture, must be accepted as the true 
interpretation. Rome says that in these words Christ 
asked His heavenly Father to bestow, the gift of infallible 
teaching on St. Peter, the words not bearing the least 
proof of this notwithstanding. 

But there is yet more. It remained to be proved 
that the successors of St. Peter were infallible also. 
But this could not be difficult to an infallible Church. 
No attempt is made to find Scripture for this doctrine. 
A Council, which was not held until 1438, is fathered 
with the responsibility ; so that, according to this cate- 
chism, it took the Church fourteen hundred 3'ears to 
find out that the successors of St. Peter were infallible. 

Here is the question and answer. 

" Q. Who is the lawful successor of St. Peter ? 

'^ A. The lawful successor of St. Peter is the Pope or 
Bishop of Rome." (Council of Florence ^ 1438.) 

Such an important matter having been thus proved 
past all question to the hapless and ignorant learner, 
the next statement is easy,- -shall we say the next step 
in deceit ? — and in the most cruel of all deceit, the 
deceit of the young is accomplished. 

^' Q. What power has the Pope as the lawful suc- 
cessor of St. Peter ? 

^' A. As lawful successor of St. Peter, the Pope has 
the same gift and power of infallibility that St. Peter 
had from Christ." 

The cool assurance is amusing of thus "proving" 
a doctrine on the authority, of a text which does not 
even allude to the subject of St. Peter's infallibility, 
and then asserting, without a shadow of proof, that the 



8o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Pope is also infallible. And all this is taught to children 
who have not, and who are deliberately prevented from 
ever having, any proof that it is mere assertion. Let 
it even be supposed that Christ did pray that St. Peter 
might be personally infallible, where is there one word, 
or even one inference, that his successors were to be 
so ? What an awful account these men will have to 
give at the last great day for the way in which they 
have deceived the ignorant ; and above all for the 
blasphemy with which they have invented words for 
Christ which He never said, and then used them for 
the destruction of the world. What a stupendous 
fabric of deceit has been thus built up, and what untold 
misery has been the result. 

If, notwithstanding the prayer and presence of Christ 
Himself, Peter denied his Master with oaths and curses, 
how can the successors of St. Peter, even if he had 
successors, hope to be more secure ? 

It is certainly a matter of no small moment for the 
Protestants of the whole Christian world to know what 
is taught, by the express authority of the Church, to 
the young, who will have the fate of empires and states 
in their control in a few short years. Now on the 
page which contains the episcopal and Papal appro- 
bation for these Catechisms (for this is one of a series 
prepared for use in parochial schools), a long list is 
given of Roman dignitaries who have expressed their 
great admiration of this system of Christian doctrine, 
and last, but not least, in the estimation of pious Roman 
Catholics, and in importance to us, is the approbation 
of Rome itself of the use of this catechism, pro scholis 
parochialibus (for parochial schools). 

Before proceeding further I desire to call attention to 
the title '' Christian doctrine," and to show how very 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 8i 

misleading Rome can be — perhaps I might say how very 
deceptive, — and wilfully so. A Protestant minister, who 
was so liberal of God's truth as to take the part of the 
Roman Church on the school question, wrote a letter 
to the Boston press, in which he said that all the Roman 
Catholics wished to teach their children was '' Christian 
doctrine ; " and he was shocked that there should be any 
opposition to such a good work. He, for his part, 
approved this truly religious teaching. 

All this was very well, if he and his Roman clients 
had meant the same thing by the same words. But to 
him "Christian doctrine" meant the religion of the 
Bible, to them it meant the religion of the Pope. He 
believed in the religion of Christ, and in the Bible as 
the source from which it should be obtained. They 
believed that the Pope, and the Pope alone, had a right 
to define what was Christian doctrine, and what was not. 
Now there are two points to be observed in connec- 
tion with this claim to infallibility, laying aside for 
a moment the curious fact that it is an entirely new 
doctrine of the Roman Church. First, it should be 
noted that the Catechism appeals to Scripture to prove 
that St. Peter was appointed the visible head and chief 
pastor of the Church by Christ Himself. It is added, 
further, that St. Peter had '' power to govern, to teach, 
and to make laws, and that Christ obtained for St. 
Peter the special gift of infallible teaching when He 
prayed for him" (Luke xxii. 32). 

Of course the necessary sequel is that the Pope is the 
successor of St. Peter, and as such has the same power. 
But how very remarkable it is that the Pope's infalli- 
biliy was not discovered until the year of grace 1870. 
Previous to that time it was taught in Roman Catholic 
catechisms and books of theology, that the doctrine of 

6 



82 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the Pope was infallible, was no article of the Roman- 
Catholic faith Such are the inconsistencies of the 
Roman Church. 

In the Rev. Stephen Keenan's '^ Controversal Cate- 
chism " (which w^as taught to Roman Catholic children, 
and to all who needed instruction), in all editions 
printed before the Vatican Council, there was the 
following question and answer : — 

'' Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope himself to 
be infallible ? 

''A. This is a Protestant invention, it is no article of 
the Catholic faith ; no decision of his can bind on pain 
of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the 
teaching body, that is, by the Bishops of the Church." 

In all editions printed since the Vatican Council this 
question and answer is omitted, and without a word of 
explanation. This Catechism had the approbation of 
the late Archbishop Hughes of New York, and was in 
general use. And yet Romanists will tell those whom 
they can deceive that the teaching of the Roman Catholic 
Church never changes. Here certainly is a change, and 
a stupendous one, when what was once condemned as 
^^ a Protestant invention" is now the received doctrine 
of the Church of Rome, and one moreover which Roman 
Catholics are obliged to believe under pain of sin, as 
much as the doctrine of the Trinity. 

To-day we are told that the temporal povv^er of the 
Pope is a doctrine which Roman Catholics ought to 
accept. ''The Pope," says the author of this approved 
Catechism, '' is a temporal prince, but not by Divine 
right." How long will it be before this doctrine will 
be made an article of faith, and added to the long 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 83 

String of *' faiths " which were certainly not delivered 
to the saints ? 

We have said that nothing is gained to truth by 
misrepresentation of error. We leave such misrepresen- 
tations to those who find it necessary to make them ; 
and as there is one point on which Protestants are 
sometimes in error as to Roman Catholic belief, I will 
explain it here. Although the Roman Church has 
made it an article of faith, as obligatory on her people 
as a belief in the Blessed Trinity, that the Pope is 
infallible, she does not teach that he is " impeccable ; " 
in other words, a Pope may be a very wicked man, — 
and how wicked some Popes were no one knows 
better than Romanist theologians,— and yet he may 
be infallible in his teaching. For instance, Pius IX. 
might have been as wicked as his friend and adviser 
Cardinal Antonelli, whose moral character will not bear 
investigation, and yet he might have all the same the 
power infallibly to declare what the Church should 
believe. Romanists are very triumphant when they 
find any mistake made on this point by Protestant 
controversialists ; and it is very important for the 
great cause of truth that there should be no mistakes 
on these subjects. 

Our Divine. Lord distinctly told St. Peter, after the 
very interview in which the Popes of Rome claim that 
He conferred infallibility on - him and his successors, 
that he was " Satan," and that he savoured not of the 
things of God, but of the things of men. Certainly if 
the Popes of Rome claim the honours of Peter, they 
should also claim the reproof of Peter ; and how well 
they have followed him in *' savouring of the things of 
men " all history can tell. How many of them have 
been an offence to Christ, no matter how the Church 



84 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

may try to conceal their festering sores of worldliness 
and vice ? St. Paul, far from yielding deference to St. 
Peter as the head of the Church, declares that he was 
himself the one to whom the Gospel of the uncircum- 
cision was committed, and that the Gospel of the 
circumcision was given to Peter. This remarkable 
statement, which is left on record in the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and which cannot therefore be disputed, has not 
received the attention which it deserves. St. Paul's 
testimony is one which cannot be disputed ; and here 
the statement is made in the plainest language, that 
by the Divine appointment he, and not St. Peter, was 
the person chosen by God to preach the Gospel to 
the GentileSj while St. Peter's mission was to the Jews ; 
and we find, on the indisputable evidence of the Bible, 
that St. Paul founded the Church of Rome, while there* 
is no reliable historical evidence to show that St. Peter 
ever spent a day in that city. St. Paul, in his Epistle 
to the Romans, reminds them of his claim on them 
as the founder of their Church ; for as he says, he 
*' never built on another man's foundation." (St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Romans xv. 20.) It is noteworthy also, 
that while St. Paul took charge of the spiritual instruc- 
tion of the Roman Church, St. Peter, following his 
divinely inspired vocation, devoted himself to the Jews, 
as we find in the Acts of the Apostles. If St. Peter 
had been endowed with the powers which Romanists 
now claim for the Pope, it is strange that he never 
claimed this authority, and that, far from its having 
been known to the other Apostles, they actually dis- 
puted points of discipline with him, in a way which 
would have made a modern Pope shower down excom- 
munications, and call down upon them the vengeance 
of his infallible condemnation. 



UNDERSTANDING INFALUBILITY CLEARLY. 85 

In, the Epistle to the Galatians St. Paul says "they 
all saw," that is, the whole Church saw, " that the gospel 
of the uncircumcision was committed to me, as the 
gospel of the circumcision was to Peter." True, the 
whole Christian Church saw this, as well as the 
Apostles and their disciples ; and no one else saw any 
other plan of Church government, until the ambition 
of the bishops of Rome to follow St. Peter in his fall, 
led them to " savour of the things which be of men." 
Would to God that they had followed St. Peter in his 
repentance for his fall. Would to God also that an 
apostle could be found in the present day who would 
imitate St. Paul in his stern rebuke of St. Peter, and 
tell these imitators of Peter's worldly vacillations that 
they should cease their ''dissimulations," and begin to 
*' walk according to the truth of the gospel." (Gal. 
ii. 11-14.) If St. Peter had been made head of the 
Church, as the Pope claims to be, how could St. Paul 
have dared to say that he was to be "withstood," or 
to accuse him of not '' walking according to the truth of 
the gospel " ? What would the Popes of to-day say if 
such a charge were made against them by a brother 
bishop ? His excommunication would be only a matter 
of time. These infallible '' Peters " would have sent 
St. Paul to the stake, if he had reproved them in those 
ages when the Popes had that temporal power which 
gave them the liberty to persecute as they pleased. 
The question in dispute was no mere matter of opinion ; 
it was a vital question, and it was most certainly related 
to a matter of faith. But if there is not one word in 
Scripture to show that the Apostles submitted to Peter, — 
and they certainly must have known it, if he was the 
head of the infant Church, — and if there is a great deal 
to show that his alleged supremacy was not rccog- 



86 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

nised, where is there even one word to prove that he 
was to have an infalhble successor ? Even if Peter 
was the rock on which the Church was to be built, 
and if Christ was not the rock, — for certainly there could 
not be two foundations, and if Peter was the rock, 
Christ was not,— even if all this is admitted, where, 
we ask, is the proof that Peter was to be followed by a 
series of infallible successors ? 

All this is most important at the present day. If 
Protestants who are in constant contact with Roman 
Catholics do not understand the Roman question from 
all points of view, how can they convince their oppo- 
nents, or save themselves from falling into the snares 
of Rome ? It is well worth expending time and careful 
consideration on all these subjects, for the time has 
come when the Christian needs to be armed at all 
points. We ask again, for the question is of the 
greatest importance, where is there one, text in Scrip- 
ture which proves that St. Peter's successors were to 
be endowed with the gift of infallibility ? The texts 
of Scripture which Romanists bring forward to prove 
that the Popes are not merely the successors of 
Peter, but are also his infallible successors, are as 
absurd and as misleading as their quotations from 
history. 

First, they quote the words of our Divine Lord to St. 
Peter : " I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, 
and thou, being converted, strengthen thy brethren." 
Surely no one with common sense can take this text to 
mean, either, that St. Peter should be able to declare in- 
fallibly what was to be believed as of faith, much less can 
it be made to mean that St. Peter's successors, if he had 
any, should be also infallible. Rome, with her usual 
policy of accommodation, has, as I have already stated, 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 87 



mistranslated the text by using the word '' confirm " 
instead of ''strengthen," because the word ''confirm" 
implies authority, whereas the word " strengthen " is 
not so helpful to their case. But allowing Rome all 
the advantage of her mistranslations, where does the 
authority come in declaring St. Peter infallible, or 
declaring that he should have infallible successors ? 
In fact, if Christ at this time and by these words made 
St. Peter infallible, he very soon gave painful evidence 
of his fallibility. For it was not many hours after ere 
he had denied his Lord. What a tremendous failure 
for a newly-appointed infallible teacher ! 

The calm way in which Romanists announce the 
fictions of their own invention, as if they were well- 
known and indisputable facts, would be amusing if the 
subject was not so serious. Texts of Scripture must 
be interpreted according to the opinion of the Church, 
and it is made a grievous sin to interpret them in 
any other way. How easy is it, then, to establish any 
theory ? Statements are made as to the opinions of 
the Fathers, given with all the assurance of an 
infallible Church, which are either garbled extracts 
or deliberate forgeries, and the hapless victims of 
priestly fraud are not allowed, under pain of sin, to 
question, nor dare they follow the Apostle's advice to 
"prove all things." What would be said to a teacher 
of science or history who should forbid his disciples 
to read any books except those which he had written, 
or to inquire into the truth of, or investigate an}' 
theory" which he had not previously approved ? And 
yet this is just what the Church of Rome requires. 
The result of this teaching is very convenient for the 
infallible teacher. When no inquiries are made there 
can be no disputes. When there are no discussions 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



there is a dead level of calm, which is declared to be 
an evidence of unity, and so the farce goes on. 

I think it would be difficult for Protestants to believe 
the gross ignorance of even fairly educated Romanists 
as to the doctrines of their Church. They believe, but 
they certainly have not an intelligent belief; and can 
this be called belief? It is true indeed that once 
infallibility is accepted, there is no further need for 
thought. We might as well at once shut ourselves up in 
lunatic asylums, or cease to think at all on the subject 
of religion. Of what use is it to think, when we are 
forbidden to reason under pain of the loss of all 
that is most dear to us ? We ask, and ask in vain, 
for one word of Scripture which says in plain lan- 
guage that St. Peter was to have an infallible suc- 
cessor. To say that the promise of our Lord to be 
with His Church to the end of time, was a promise 
that St. Peter's alleged successors should be at hberty 
to infaUibly change, or proclaim, any doctrine which 
they pleased, is almost too absurd for common sense. 
It certainly requires an infallible Church to make 
out such a meaning to require us to believe that our 
Lord's prayer for St. Peter that his faith might not 
fail was a promise of personal infallibility. The very fact 
of our Lord's having prayed that his faith might not fail, 
is sufficient proof that there was fear of failure. But 
when the Roman controversialist is driven to a corner 
with Scripture texts, he has prompt recourse to the 
wide and fertile pasture of the Fathers. And here his 
skill in denying what opposes his theory,, and in proving 
and arranging what suits it, is in its full glory. 

Now it is self-evident that if the Scriptures have 
not taught the doctrine of the personal and particular 
infallibility of St. Peter's successors, no amount of 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 89 



quotations from the Fathers can be of the least value. 
But as these quotations are being continually brought 
forward, it is as well, for the good of those who are 
anxious to meet Romanists on grounds of solid infor- 
mation, to have the facts before them. 

In the first place, it may be well to note that the 
Fathers were divided on almost every subject under 
discussion. It is clear to the impartial student of 
history, that if they had believed the Popes to have 
been the infallible successors of St. Peter, they w^ould 
have appealed to him, and his judgment on this point 
would have been accepted as final. It was not till long 
centuries after the death of St. Peter that the claim 
was put forward by the Church of Rome of being the 
only true representative of St. Peter. First, it assumed, 
without one particle of evidence, that St. Peter spent 
five-and-twenty years in Rome. Now, so far from this 
assertion being true, it is so evidently false, that it could 
only have been made by a Church, which requires its 
followers to believe whatever it sa3^s, w^ithout any time 
being lost in proving the point. In fact, the Church 
acts on the simple plan of first declaring herself in- 
fallible, and then saying 3'OU must accept her decisions 
because she is infallible. 

It is very important for Protestants to know just 
what are the arguments, if they can be dignified by that 
name, which are used by Romanists in stating their 
beliefs to the people. A book was published in England 
called '' Catholic Belief," which deals in this style 
of assertion without proof. Another book has been 
published in this country (America), written by Cardinal 
Gibbons, which is just in the same style. The circu- 
lation of both of these books has been very large, 
partl}^ because they are issued in a popular form, 



90 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

but chiefly because the names attached to them have 
insured an immense sale. The priest who could be 
reported to "his Eminence" as having sold hundreds 
of his books is sure of a warm place in the episcopal 
remembrance. In "Catholic Belief" we are told quite 
calmly, as a simple matter of fact, — so much a matter of 
fact that it is not worth proving, — that " St. Peter became 
Pope on the ascension of Jesus Christ, and Bishop of 
Rome in 42, where he died martyr in the year GjT 

One scarcely knows whether to describe this as 
ignorance or cool impudence. But note well the 
cleverness of the trick. No Roman Catholic will dare 
to question this statement, nor will he have any oppor- 
tunity to examine for himself as to the veracity of the 
writer. He must swallow the whole story without 
inquiry, and without question. To question a book 
approved by the infallible Church would, indeed, be 
too grievous a sin ! And so day after day and year 
after year the miserable delusion goes on. Mark the 
use of the familiar word '' Pope." Think well of the 
impression on the young. Those whom the child has 
been taught to revere, and almost to worship as gods, 
tell him in his earliest and most impressionable years 
that St. Peter was " Pope of Rome." Could there be 
a surer way to make him believe that there always 
was a Pope ? 

I have alluded to the gross ignorance of Romanists 
as to their own religion. Why should they trouble 
themselves to understand it, when it is not necessary 
for them to do anything but to believe what they are 
told to believe ? I was conversing one day with a well- 
educated intelligent lady, who had held a good position 
as a teacher in a national school in Ireland, or, as it 
would be called in America, a parochial school. I was 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 91 

telling her of the immense change in the doctrine of 
the Church which had been made since I entered it, 
and that I did not see why I, or any other rational 
being, should be called on to change their belief because 
the Pope chose to make new articles of faith at his 
pleasure. I found, to my amazement, that this teacher, 
who had for years taught the Roman Catholic Cate- 
chism, was not aware that what is now the most fun- 
damental doctrine of the Roman Church was added to 
her faith within living memory, and she would scarcely 
believe me until I gave her Roman Catholic evidence 
of the fact. 

When I entered the Church of Rome I was told that 
it was a '' Protestant calumny " on the Roman creed 
to say the Pope was infallible ; that infallibility could 
not reside in a person, but that it resided in the collec- 
tive voice of the Church. I remember the shock that 
it was to me, to find that a Church which I had believed 
could not change its creed, had added to it in a matter 
of such immense importance. What a stupendous 
change of belief! What a strange mystery that even 
St. Peter had not taught the personal infalhbihty of his 
successors, and that it should be reserved to a very 
fallible Pope in the nineteenth century, whose chief 
favourite was a man of notoriously immoral character, 
to discover a doctrine of which all his predecessors 
were ignorant. 

It is but a short time since I met a gentleman, a 
former pupil of a so-called Catholic College in Canada, 
who calmly told me that the Pope was the *^ Paraclete " 
whom Christ had promised to His Church. I had 
found many absurd beHefs among educated as well as 
amongst ignorant Romanists, but this exceeded all. I 
asked him did he not know that the Paraclete was the 



92 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

word used in the Roman Catholic version of the Bible 
for the Holy Ghost ? But it was useless. He admitted 
that Christ had promised to send the Holy Spirit to His 
disciples, but he was still very sure that He had also 
promised to send the " Paraclete/' which was the Pope. 
I begged of him to read a Roman Catholic Bible, and 
see for himself that he was wrong, and that Jesus Christ 
had never promised to send the Pope, but it was little 
use ; he seemed greatly startled and surprised, but as 
far as I know that was the end of it. 

Nor can I easily forget the surprise of a well-edu- 
cated Roman Catholic girl to whom, by accident, I made 
some remark about St. Peter's wife. Her amazement 
was most amusing, and the shock to her faith in the 
teaching of the Church was considerable. She had quite 
sense enough to see that if St. Peter had a wife, and if 
our Lord showed His approval of it by curing his wife's 
mother when she was ill of a fever, it could not be such 
a wicked thing for priests, or even for Popes, to marry. 

When the famous Robert College was established 
in Constantinople the Bible question loomed up as the 
great difficulty. If men would only pause to think, 
and then to realise how absurd it is that the very book 
which is the source of information on the subject of our 
faith should be denied to us, as it is by Rome, there 
would certainly be a change in public opinion. We 
have to face the great fact that the Bible has been given 
for our information and guidance by the Founder of 
our religion, and yet one half of the so-called Christian 
world considers the free study of this book a danger to 
religion. It is certainly dangerous to those who do not 
wish to have the religion which it teaches known to all 
men. But how it can be dangerous in any other light 
is a proposition so absurd that it refutes itself. 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 93 



What right has any human being to come between 
the creature and the Creator? What authority has 
any Church to say "You shall not" when God has 
said ''You shall"? He has said to all.His creatures, 
" Search the Scriptures ; " and how dare any creature 
say, "Thou shalt not search them, except in so far 
as I permit you " ? Yet this is what Rome does. 

It is very important in reasoning with Roman 
Catholics to realise their complete ignorance of the 
Scripture, and consequently of Gospel truth. If we 
desire to enlighten them we must do so by a careful 
consideration of their prejudices, and a clear compre- 
hension of their ignorance, and of its causes. It is no 
use to employ an argument which they cannot under- 
stand, nor to bring forward statements which they 
have no means of verifying. Show them in the Douay 
Bible the plain command of God as to reading the 
Bible. This command the Roman Church has not 
dared to change or omit. The work of keeping the 
people in ignorance can be accomplished quite as easily, 
and far more safely, by telling them they must obey 
the Church, and that the Church, in her wisdom, desires 
them not to read the Bible, except with a special license. 
I was not a little amused, on one occasion, at the 
extreme ignorance of the commonest truths of Chris- 
tianity, on the part of a Roman Catholic girl, who 
attacked me in the streets of Toronto, Canada, for my 
apostasy, as she had been told to call it by the priest, 
and used the most violent and ignorant language to 
me. Like the gentleman who firmly believed that the 
Pope was the Paraclete which Christ had promised to 
send, she as firmly believed that there were a number 
of different Bibles which the Protestants had made up, 
and which had originated in the time of Luther, with 



94 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

whose name all Roman Catholics are familiar, as he is 
a good stalking horse for all the supposed sins of 
Protestants, in forsaking the " true " Church. 

The following specimen of the kind of teaching 
which is given to Roman Catholics, not only of the 
poorer class, but of all classes, will show the source of 
their deplorable ignorance. The extracts are not taken 
from a Protestant source, they are from the Roman 
Catholic Catechism from which I have already quoted ; 
and as I have said, it is not only authorised by 
Cardinal Gibbons, but it is also highly approved by 
the Pope ; and what is of equal importance, it is the 
very Catechism which all sisters and monks and priests 
are obliged to teach to the young. 

*' Q. Have Protestants any faith in Christ ? 

" A. They never had. 

'' Q. Why not ? 

"A. Because there never lived such a Christ as they 
imagine and believe in. 

^^Q. In what kind of a Christ do they believe? 

^^ A. In such a one of whom they can make a liar, 
with impunity, whose doctrine they can interpret as 
they please, and who does not care what a man believes, 
provided he be an honest man before the public. 

'' Q. Will such a faith in such a Christ save Protest- 
ants ? 

''A. No sensible man will assert such an absurdity. 

" Q. What will Christ say to them on the Day of 
Judgment ? 

''A. I know you not, because you never knew 
Me. 

" Q. Are Protestants willing to confess their sins to 
a Catholic bishop or priest, who alone has power from 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 95 

Christ to forgive sins ? ' Whose sins you shall forgive 
they are forgiven them.* 

'' A. No ; for they generally have an utter aversion to 
confession, and therefore their sins will not be forgiven 
throughout all eternity. 

'' Q. What follows from this ? 

" A. That they die in their sins, and are damned." 

If Protestants, after reading this, and knowing that 
it is taught in every parochial school, help to support 
such teaching, they will certainly be responsible for the 
results. Let it be distinctly and clearly understood 
that this is the authoritative teaching of the Roman 
Catholic Church throughout the world, and that it is the 
proud and true boast of Rome that she never changes 
her teaching. On such points as these she certainly 
never changes, though she has changed her '^ infallible 
opinions " on other subjects a good many times. ■ 

There is another subject on which she never changes, 
and that is as to her duty to burn and destroy 
'' heretics ; " but she does not carry out this part of her 
creed unless she has sufficient temporal power to do it 
safely, and she is wisely silent on the subject when she 
cannot act. 

There are no doubt thousands of Protestants in the 
United States who will give their money and their 
influence towards the support of the new Roman 
Catholic University in Washington, where all this 
doctrine will be taught, but their children, and their 
children's children will be the sufferers, when Rome 
has obtained sufficient temporal power in America to 
establish the Inquisition ; and in view of the immense 
political support given to. Romanists by the American 
people, this is only a question of time. 



96 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

It is true, indeed, that the revised statutes of the 
United States declare, ^' The ahen seeking citizenship 
must take an oath to renounce for ever all allegiance 
and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or 
sovereignty, in particular that to which he has been 
subject." But what use is this when we have to deal 
with a Church which claims the power to absolve the 
subjects of any government from their oaths of allegi- 
ance, and even makes it a meritorious act for them 
to break their most solemn vows at the bidding of 
the Pope ? Nor is this at all inconsistent with Roman 
Catholic teaching. Once admit an infallible Church, 
and your only duty is obedience to all its dictates. 

Again, observe how the infallibility of the Church is 
the corner stone of the whole building. It is little 
wonder that Rome holds to it as she does. And it 
may be well noted here that there is no reason why the 
aspirations of Rome should be limited in the United 
States, when in Canada the Pope's vicegerent has 
claimed, and has been given, the next place to the Queen 
in the Dominion Parliament. It is no wonder that 
Roman Catholics are proud of their Church, and mis- 
take its temporal success for spiritual gain. The 
unthinking multitude, impressed like children with the 
rapid advancement of the temporal power of Rome, 
and by her splendid shows and ceremonies, look no 
further, and do not know that the advance of the 
temporal power of Rome is the first sign of her decay. 

There is an account in " Our Day " of how the Rev. 
Cyrus Hamlin, late President of Robert College, Con- 
stantinople, kept the Bible in the college under the 
usual opposition on the part even of Christians to 
God's Word, which is worth careful study at the 
present crisis. He says : — 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 97 

'' In the formation of Robert College in Constanti- 
nople, an institution designed for students of from 
eight to ten nationalities, and from six to eight different 
forms of religion, the question arose. What place shall 
the Bible have in the institution ? It was said by 
man}^, ' It cannot be introduced, because you expect to 
have Catholics, Armenians of the old Gregorian Church, 
Greeks of the ancient Greek Church, and persons from 
all forms of Protestantism and Judaism.' I had to decide 
the question, and send forth the programme of the col- 
lege, which I did in seven different languages, stating 
that the Bible would be read morning and evening, 
and that prayer would be offered, that there would be 
worship on the Sabbath, and that the preaching would 
be on the basis of the Bible ; that the Bible was also to 
be taught as a text-book to Bible classes on the Sabbath 
day in the different languages of the students, that is, in 
English, French, Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, etc., but 
that absolute religious freedom would reign throughout 
the institution ; that when parents should request it that 
students would be permitted to attend the worship of 
his Church on their sacred day, that is, the Moslem on 
Friday, the Jew on Saturday, and the members of the 
different Christian Churches on their Sunday ; but that 
all the other students would be required to attend the 
religious services of the college. 

" It was honestly supposed by many that this arrange- 
ment was absurd, that non-Protestant parents would 
not send their children to an institution where the 
Bible would have such a place. The first year we had 
but few non-Protestant students ; the second year vre 
had quite a number ; the third year the non-Protestant 
pupils outnumbered the Protestants ; and ever since the 
non-Protestant students have outnumbered the Protest- 

7 



98 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ants three to one. When a parent, father or mother, 
requested that a son should be allowed to go to his 
Church on his sacred day we allowed it, and there v/as 
always a number who were thus sent to their Churches. 
But how long ? I never knew a student in that college 
go five tirnes to his Church. Why ? Because the 
worship was in an unknown tongue to him — in the 
Roman Church in the Latin ; in the Greek Church 
the ancient Greek ; in the Armenian Church the 
ancient Armenian ; and they found that the services 
in the college were in the language they could under- 
stand, and they chose to attend them. Now if we 
had refused to let them attend their Churches they 
would have gone, but as we allowed them to go 
they did not care to go. They did not go after a 
time. 

" In the Bible classes we had no difficulty, because 
no sectarianism was taught. Nothing was said about 
Judaism or Islam or any form of Protestantism or 
Rom.an Catholicism, or Orientalism of any kind. The 
Bible was taught, and that was all. There was no 
trouble about versions. I think we had as many 
as six or eight versions in the college. We had the 
King James Version, the Douay Version, the Septua- 
gint, the ancient Armenian Version, and the modern 
Armenian Version, and the Bulgarian. We cared not 
what version of the Bible the pupils had ; there was no 
trouble on that point whatever. But our plan had this 
good effect, that many of the students expressed their 
wonder that the Protestant Version was so almost 
exactly hke their Version ; and many compared the 
Douay Version with the Protestant, and were surprised 
to find that in effect the same truths were in both, and 
wherever there was a difference it led them to inquire 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. 99 

into the difference. We never taught them on that 
point, but left it to their own inquiries. 

" This freedom of the Bible and of the pupils com- 
manded the respect of the pupils and of their parents. 
After some five or six years, perhaps it was in the 
seventh year, a combination was formed against this 
plan. The opposition had its origin outside the col- 
lege. There was a party determined that the Bible 
should be taken out of Robert College, or that students 
should be withdrawn ; and a real conspiracy was got 
up against the Bible, and finally the definite ultimatum 
was given us, ^ You take out the Bible, or we shall take 
out the scholars.' We replied to that, ' The doors of 
Robert College swing both ways, and as easily one way 
as another,' — which was the fact materially, — 'and any 
student who wishes to go, is as free to go as any other 
student is to come.' In point of fact, only seventeen 
students left. They were students we were very sorry 
to lose ; they were connected with high and influential 
families, and many of them were ardent hard-working 
students. They left. But in two weeks, one after 
another, twelve of them returned, and within three 
weeks fifteen of the seventeen returned, and the other 
two called privately at the college to say that they were 
immensely sorry that they could not come back, but that 
the pride of their fathers would not allow them to come. 
Since that time, sir, there has been no demand for taking 
the Bible out of Robert College. And I have had in- 
telligent men, non-Protestant, but very intelligent Greek 
merchants, say to me, ' If you should take the Bible out 
of the college it would ruin it. What we Greeks need 
is more Bible and less ritualism.' 

" This question of the Bible in the schools requires 
only a little more courage. Stand by the Bible, and 



lOO INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the Bible will stand by you. Stand by the Bible in 
the schools, and the schools will flourish." 

'' Stand by the Bible, and the Bible will stand by 
you." Words to be deeply weighed by every one 
calling himself Christian. Nay, the wonder is that 
there should be any difficulty on such a subject, and 
that it should be necessary to urge upon Christians the 
duty and necessity of reading God's Word, or of helping 
others to read it. I say fearlessly that I have no doubt 
that it was my early knowledge of the Bible which 
saved me from despair in the Church of Rome, and 
which was eventually the happy cause of my leaving it. 
Long years of experience of Rome has left no doubt 
on my mind of the wisdom of the Roman Church in 
limiting to the utmost the reading of God's Word by her 
people. It has also convinced me that the one way to 
enlighten those who are kept in deliberate darkness is 
to give them the hght of the Bible. 

And here I can scarcely refrain from the remark 
that while the Roman Church had not one word to say 
about the collection of funds to spread what Mr. Ford 
was pleased to call the " light," but what was openly 
known to be the lurid light of dynamite and plots of 
assassination, the same Church would have taken very 
prompt measures to put down any attempt to collect 
money for the spread of the light of the Gospel. 
Would to God that those who have the power would 
see to these things for themselves before it is too late. 

Though the consideration of the share which Rome 
has in the discontent and outrages which are a disgrace 
to the Irish people everywhere, as well in America as 
in Ireland, belongs to a later part of this work, I can- 
not defer the consideration of the subject altogether. 



I 



UNDERSTANDING INFALLIBILITY CLEARLY. loi 

It is a matter not of opinion, but of fact, that Mr. Patrick 
Ford occupied his time and his talents, and gave the 
use of his paper, to the collection of money, regularly 
acknowledged in its columns, for this very purpose, that 
this continued for many years, and that Archbishop 
Corrigan uttered no word of condemnation. On the 
contrary, he has now shown his high approval of the 
past career of this monster of outrage, by appoint- 
ing Mr. Ford to the important position of editor of the 
principal Roman Catholic journal in his diocese. But 
if Mr. Ford had collected money for spreading the 
light of the Gospel of peace, the past history of the 
Roman Church would strangely belie itself if he 
received any reward. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 
"Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests." — Rev. v. lo. 

ONE of the great attractions of the Roman Church, 
to the educated as well as to the uneducated, is 
the assurance she gives to all men who will believe 
her that she has always taught the same doctrine. 
What, Rome to teach one thing to-day, and to teach 
the opposite to-morrow ? Perish the thought. Now it 
is very easy to defend a case and to prove a statement 
if those concerned are positively forbidden to hear the 
other side of the question. We have seen in the last 
chapter how Rome teaches the young deliberate lies 
about the Protestant religion, and if she teaches 
deliberate lies on one subject, why should she hesitate 
to teach deliberate lies on every subject ? 

Those persons who have been in France, and above 
all in Italy or Spain, — for the darkness is darkest in 
those countries where the light of the Gospel has the 
least access, — will remember how the poorer classes 
always speak of Protestants as heathen or Pagan, and 
this not in a controversial manner, or as any reproach. 
It is mentioned as a simple fact, about which there can 
be no doubt. Certainly there is no doubt in the minds 
of the people. Any one who is not a Roman Catholic 
is not a Christian, and, like my ignorant accuser in 



THE FALLIBILJTY OF INFALLIBILITY. \o: 



Toronto, they simply believe what they have been told 
by their priests, whom they have been taught to look 
upon as gods, and whom — God help them !— they think 
could not possibly deceive. And what shall be said 
of those who knowingly and wilfully ** love and make 
a lie " ? There is but one doom for them ; it is a doom 
pronounced by God Himself, and no Pope or priest 
can turn aside the vials of His wrath. 

When children are deliberately taught in these free 
countries that Protestants '' never had any faith in 
Christ," some are tempted to smile at the absurdity 
of the charge, while others profess to feel very sure 
that the Roman Catholic Church does not teach such 
an absurdity. But the fact remains all the same, 
whether we believe it or not, and the evidence is before 
the whole world. Who will believe that Cardinal 
Gibbons, who appears before the American public as 
the very incarnation of humility and liberality, has 
commanded his sisters and his priests to teach that 
all Protestants die in their sins and are damned, and 
that ''they believe in a Christ whom they can make 
a liar with impunity " ? Such are some of the specimens 
of Roman Catholic truthfulness and charity in repre- 
senting the doctrine of Protestants of all denominations. 
Even the Episcopal Church, some of whose members 
have such deep sympathy with Rome — unless when 
Rome interferes with her plans for securing public 
property,— even this Church is not excluded from this 
fell condemnation. 

But if Rome was as open in her popular statements 
as she is in her creeds and in her authorised teachings, 
the world would be alarmed, and the result would be 
that she would be known as she really is, and this 
is the very last thing which that Church can afford. 



104 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

For this reason, from time to time she proclaims her 
liberahty of doctrine, at the expense of her solemn 
professions of an unchangeable creed. 

When Protestants have to listen to liberal sentiments, 
coming from the lips of Romanists, they would do well 
to bear in mind the candid warning which was given, 
on this important subject, by the Roman Catholic Ram- 
bler, published in England, September, 185 1. ''Believe 
us not," said that magazine, '' Protestants of England 
and Ireland, for an instant, when you see us pouring 
forth our Liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic 
orator at some public assemblage declaring solemnly 
that ' this is the most humiliating day of his life, when 
he is called upon to defend once more the glorious 
principle of religious freedom ' (especially if he says 
anything about the Emancipation Act, and the ' tolera- 
tion ' it conceded to Catholics) — be not too simple in 
your credulity. These are brave words, but they mean 
nothing." 

The world at large was lost in admiration at the 
liberality of Rome when she permitted the circulation 
of the Bible in France, when M. Lassere issued his 
household edition of the Scriptures. But the world at 
large had not long to wait before the reading of it was 
forbidden, and the unfortunate author was compelled 
to call in the whole edition, as it was condemned when 
the circulation became too great, although the work 
had been previously sanctioned. 

Protestants and Roman Catholics can never meet on 
equal terms in controversy. The average Protestant, 
accustomed to say what he means, especially on 
religious subjects, — and what need has he of conceal- 
ment ?— is ]io match for the Romanist in the art of 
dissimulation. The Romanist is in the position of a 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 105 



man who is fencing with truth, and who, knowing 
perfectly well that his arguments are based on equivo- 
cation, or on positively false statements, equivocates 
boldly while his Protestant friend thinks he is telling 
the pure truth. The other resource is perhaps as 
pitiable ; it is the resource of honest ignorance, and 
the amount of honest ignorance in the Church of 
Rome has alone saved it from utter destruction on the 
part of its own followers. If I reiterate my statements 
on these, or kindred points, it is because I have long 
seen the great necessity for doing so. It is so difficult 
for the ordinary honest Protestant, who is not driven 
to make out a case for his Church, who knows the 
evidence for what he believes, and has sifted it for him- 
self, to understand either the duplicity or the ignorance 
of the Roman Catholic. 

When Protestant children are instructed, they are 
sent to the Word of God to prove all things ; with the 
Roman Catholic child the very reverse is the case. 
The Roman Catholic child is told what he must believe, 
and he is told that he must believe it because the 
Church (represented to him by the priests) says so. 
There is no explanation, no argument worthy of the 
name ; and it is a terrible thing to say to the impres- 
sionable mind of a child that eternal damnation will be 
the penalty of not accepting implicitly all this unproved 
teaching. Even should an intelligent child fail to find 
in the expression "Thou art Peter, and on this rock 
I will build My Church," a convincing proof that 
Peter and all his successors were at the same moment 
pronounced infallible, he dare not say so. Such a 
thought wonld be a " sin," to be confessed as a mortal 
sin, not against God, but against that mysterious entity 
" the Church," which first faintly points to Scripture 



io6 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

as the warrant for its being, and then tells its subjects 
that they must not accept Scripture except as explained 
by itself; and that this same Scripture is a dangerous 
study for the unlearned, including in that category all 
who are not priests, no matter what their education 
and intellectual attainments may be. Who does not 
see in this method of educating the young the source 
of the superstitious belief of the masses ? A child is 
at the mercy of its teachers. First impressions are all 
but ineradicable. A child who is taught to believe a 
certain thing by priests, to whom its parents teach it to 
look up to with awe as more than mortal^ a child who 
is taught to believe that its hopes of future happiness 
depend solely on believing without question what it is 
taught by its priests, is prepared in later life to cling 
to its early teaching as the shipwrecked mariner clings 
to the wreck from which he expects salvation. 

One w^ho has been taught as a child that it is a sin 
to question what he is told, and on whom this cruel 
perversion of truth has been impressed with all the 
force of a Church which compensates, by appeals to 
the senses, for what it refuses in appeal to the reason, 
is safe to remain in ignorance of all that might prove 
the deception practised on it by its early teachers. 

Take, for example, the teaching of the Roman 
Catechism for children on the question of infallibility. 
Where in the Bible is there one word to prove that 
St. Peter's successors were declared by our Divine 
Lord personally infallible ? But this matters little 
to infallible Rome. If 3^ou think the texts are not 
sufficient proof of this stupendous claim it is your fault. 
The Church that you are bound to believe says that 
they prove it, and you have nothing to do but believe 
against the evidence of your senses. In fact, according 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 107 

to the Church of Rome, your senses have been given 
you for the sole purpose of beHeving not their evidence, 
but the evidence which this Church says you must 
beheve. 

When the Roman Church finds the testimony of the 
Bible against her she turns with wonderful composure 
to the Fathers. Now if the Fathers had anything like 
a general agreement on all, or even on any one, of the 
points in dispute, it would be of some value to her to 
appeal to their testimony. But the very reverse is the 
case. There is scarcely a subject of controversy on 
which the Fathers agree. Disputes on grace, on pre- 
destination, on free will, on Church government, and on 
every theological subject, were as rife in the centuries 
immediately after the first preaching of the Gospel 
as at the present day. Disputes were rife even in 
apostolic times ; and Scripture tells us that, at the first 
Council of Jerusalem, St. Peter was not the infallible 
decider of these matters, and that at Antioch he was 
the very one who was decided against. But how can a 
Roman Catholic know this when he is not allowed to 
read the Bible which would tell him this plain truth ? 
No Roman Catholic book or catechism will tell him what 
the Bible tells him, that St. Paul ''withstood" St. Peter 
to the face, because he was to '* be blamed." Imagine 
the fate of a bishop to-day who should follow the 
example of St. Paul and dare to blame a Pope. It is 
true he would only be excommunicated at the present 
day, but he would escape death merely because it would 
not be possible for the head of his Church to burn 
him alive. 

Moreover, this rebuke of Peter was made in the most 
public manner possible. It was made, St. Paul himself 
tells us, '' before them all." (Gal. ii. 14.) Before the 



io8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

whole Church assembled at Antioch St. Paul denounced 
St. Peter. It would seem indeed very plain that the 
great fault of St. Peter was, at that time, dissimulation, 
a curious coincidence in view of all the dissimulations 
of the Church of Rome which claims him as its founder. 
He said one thing before the Jews, and another thing 
before the Gentiles. The Church of Rome has followed 
him in his dissimulations, but, alas ! not in his 
repentance. 

St. Paul knew better. Ever bold and brave for truth, 
what a clean sweep he would have made of the ter- 
giversations of the Roman Church of to-day. Were 
he in the flesh there would be no mental reservations, 
or false quotations of Scripture, or of the much-maligned 
Fathers. And St. Paul it is who says plainly that he, 
and not St. Peter, was the divinely-appointed Apostle 
of the Gentiles, while no plainer language could be used 
than that which he has used in Holy Scripture to 
prove that the divinely-appointed mission of St. Peter 
was to the Jews. (Gal. ii. 7, 8.) 

The testimony of the Fathers all goes to show that 
the claim of the Church of Rome to the " Chair of 
Peter " was a comparatively modern one, and that they 
were divided in their interpretation of those very texts 
in regard to which the Church of Rome claims that 
they were in perfect and harmonious agreement. 

The bare-faced tergiversations of Roman contro- 
versialists, and the way in which they quote and 
misquote the Fathers, has been exposed so often that it 
scarcely needs more than a passing allusion. But the 
fraud literary or otherwise, is easily concealed from 
Roman Catholics and from the great mass of mankind. 
The Roman controversialist starts into the controversy 
with all the prestige of the infallibility which his Church 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. T09 

claims. If he quotes Scripture his readers must take 
his interpretation of it, no matter how far-fetched or 
obscure it may be, because it is the dictate of an in- 
falhble Church. It is httle matter what is the plain 
meaning of any text of Scripture ; it is the meaning 
which is decided by the Church which is of real 
account. What would be said of a judge who quoted 
from law books with this restriction, that his inter- 
pretation of the cases was the only one admissible ? 
Certainly he would be ruled dut of any court of common 
sense, or common honesty. 

The argument of Rome is : "I say it is so, therefore 
it is so. You must not, at your peril, inquire further. 
I do your thinking, and I do it infallibly. What more 
do you want ? Rest, and be thankful." 

Let us now look briefly at some of this read}- 
made thinking. It is important if it is also amusing. 
Rome has artfully mixed up two different subjects — St. 
Peter's alleged visit to Rome, and the supposition that 
he founded the Church at Rome. The whole history 
of the Bible goes to show that it was St. Paul, and not 
St. Peter, who was the Apostle of Rome ; but what dees 
this matter, when it is necessary for an infallible 
Church to say it is just the other way? 

The French have a proverb difficult to translate in all 
its freshness. But it may be rendered thus without a 
misconstruction of the original, ''Lie, but lie boldly;" 
and this, in plain English, is what the Church of Rome 
does, when the question of her supposed descent from, 
and consequent authority as, the successor of St. Peter 
comes in. She begins by teaching children, in her 
Catechisms and books of instruction, that St. Peter 
was the first Pope of Rome. This being received, and 
no dispute or discussion allowed on the subject, and 



no INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. ' 

being well drilled into children in their early years 
as a fact, by those whose word they are so sure must 
be true, what can they do but believe the lie, for 
it can be called by no other name ? Next, they give 
these children a list of Popes who, they say, succeeded 
St, Peter in unbroken succession, and never a word is 
said to these poor little ones to lead them to inquire 
whether all this is gospel fact, or Roman fiction. We 
know they are taught, and are as much obliged in 
conscience to believe all this fiction, as they are to 
believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 

Thus it is that Rome fastens the chain of her 
forgeries on the young and innocent, and deprives them 
at the same time of all means of knowing the truth. 
How are they to know of the disputes of the Fathers, 
and of their differences of opinion on the most important 
points ? Even Protestant authorities are quoted, or 
rather, I should say, deliberately misquoted in books 
intended for the youthful and ignorant. Surely when 
it has been shown over and over again that Roman 
Catholics misquote and falsify history, it should be 
sufficient to make any honest man refuse them credit. 
And yet there are Protestants who do not hesitate to 
send their children to such instructors. 

A few samples of these perversions of history, which 
can easily be verified by any one who has access to a 
good library, will suffice ; for truly if one began to go 
through all the Roman Catholic falsifications of history 
and fact, the world would not contain all the books 
which might be written. We have already mentioned 
two books which are largely circulated among Roman 
Catholics, and which are also read by Protestants, many 
of whom have no means of refuting their statements, 
and who consequently take them for gospel ; and doing 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. in 



SO, they are not surprised that the Roman Church 
makes all the claims she does, when she has such 
apparently strong authorities to support her. If her 
quotations and inferences were only true, her case 
would be indeed as strong as she tries to make it 
appear. 

An assumption of authority goes a long way with a 
great many people. If a statement is only made often 
enough, and with sufficient positiveness, it will obtain 
acceptance with the multitude. Rome knows this, and 
acts upon it. She states boldly that St. Peter was the 
" first bishop of Rome," and that he was " Pope." 
The dishonest use of this word is naturally accepted by 
Roman Catholics, and often by inquiring Protestants, 
as quite sufficient proof of the supposed fact that there 
were always " Popes." The use of words and expres- 
sions, which were never heard for long centuries after 
the times in which they are alleged to have been in 
common use, is not honest, but it answers the purpose 
for which it is intended. For skill in w^hat logicians 
call suppressio veri^ or the concealing of truth to answer 
a purpose, Rome is unsurpassable. Here is Pope 
Pius IX.'s declaration of his own infallibility, adopted 
by the Vatican Council of 1 870 : — 

" Wherefore faithfully adhering to the tradition 
received from the beginning of the Christian Faith, for 
the glory of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the 
Catholic religion, and the salvation of the Christian 
people. We, the Sacred Council, approving, teach and 
define that it is a dogma divinely revealed ; that the 
Roman Pontiff, when speaking ex cathedra — that is, 
when, discharging the office of Pastor and Teacher of 
all Christians, by virtue of his supreme authority, he 



112 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held 
by the Universal Church — he, by the Divine assist- 
ance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed 
of that infalHbility with which the Divine Redeemer 
willed the Church should be endowed in defining doc- 
trine regarding Faith or Morals ; and that, therefore, 
such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable 
of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. 
But if any one — which may God avert — presume to 
contradict this, our definition, let him be anathema." 

Pius IX. was elected Pope on the 1 6th June, 1846. 
A few months after his election he issued his first 
encyclical, Qui plurihus, in which the theory of his 
infallibility was plainly indicated, and the intention to 
declare it, in the following terms : — 

''And hence so plainly appears in how great error 
they are wandering, who, by an abuse of reason, regard 
the words of God as if they were a human work. He 
condemns those who rashly dare to explain the words 
of God and interpret them at their own discretion, 
while God Himself has constituted a living authority 
which may teach the true and legitimate sense of His 
own heavenly revelation, confirm the same, and put an 
end to all controversies in matters of faith and morals 
by an infallible judgment, which Hving and infalHble 
authority exists in the Church only, which is built by 
Christ our Lord upon Peter, Head, Prince, and Shep- 
herd of the whole Church, whose faith He promised 
should never fail ; which always has its lawful Popes, 
deriving their origin without intermission from Peter 
himself, in whose chair they are seated, and are in- 
heritors and vindicators of his doctrine, dignity, honour, 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 113 

and power. And because where Peter is there is the 
Church, and Peter speaks by the Roman Pontiff, and 
always lives in his successors." 

Now there is one other point worthy of special 
note in this connection. If the Pope was '' always 
infallible " as an individual, and if it did not require 
the " consent of the Church " (see above) to make his 
decisions infallible, how was it that the consent of the 
Church was asked to make him infallible ? If the Pope 
was infallible without the Church, why did he find it 
necessary to ask the Church to make him infaUible ? 
The truth is, that the whole business was the greatest 
farce ever enacted in the sacred name of God. 

But it was necessary also to make all the dead and 
gone Popes '' infallible." If some of them knew in 
the other world the honour which was being paid to 
them, if people can be amused in the flames of eternal 
torment, some of them must have laughed in the 
bitterest derision. Their lives were so vile, and their 
deeds so evil, that even Roman Catholics cannot 
apologise for them. But all the same they are all 
(now) infallibly ! I know very well that the Roman 
Church teaches that the evil life of a Pope does not 
affect his infallibility ; and it is not for us to quarrel 
with the decisions of that Church as far as they are 
conformed to her own discipline. But there is at least 
Scripture for the solemn assertion that a bad tree 
does not bring forth good fruit ; and it is difficult for 
an ordinary mind to see where the good fruit of good 
doctrine can come from when the tree is as hopelessly 
rotten as even Romanists are obliged to admit that 
some of the trees in the line of their Popes have 
been. 

In fact, Roman casuistry is of such a slippery and 

8 



114 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

elastic character, that if a Pope issued a solemn decla- 
ration that there was no God, the Roman Catholic 
casuist would make out that he was still infalHble. 
That some Popes were condemned and found guilty 
of heresy is simply a matter of history, though it is 
an historical fact which Romanists do not like to 
admit. 

The Council of Constance, in the fifteenth century, 
deposed John XXIII. from the Popedom, because it had 
been proved to them, on the evidence of thirty-seven 
Roman Catholic witnesses, of whom ten were Bishops, 
that, '' It was public and notorious, that he (John XXIII.) 
hath been, and is still, an incorrigible sinner, guilty of 
murder, poisoning, and other great crimes, a declared 
practitioner in simony, and an obstinate heretic. That 
he had obstinately maintained before persons of honour, 
that there is no life after this, nor resurrection, and that 
the soul of man dies with the body like that of beasts." 
And it was publicly declared, in the eleventh Session 
of the Council, that John XXIII. was ''no better than 
a devil incarnate." — (Leufant's History of the Council of 
Constance^ vol. i., pp. 291, 292.) 

The whole system of Popery, and I do not wish to 
use the word in an offensive sense, is of comparatively 
recent date. It was not until the year 1564 that it 
was made an article of faith in the Roman Church, 
that it was necessary for salvation to be subject to 
the Pope, though Boniface VIII. , who became Pope 
A.D. 1294, had, in a formal Bull which can be found 
in the Roman Catholic collection of Bulls, declared that 
" it is necessary for salvation for every human creature 
to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." It is true that 
the Bible says that the only thing "necessary for 
salvation" is to beheve in the Lord Jesus Christ. 



THE FALLIBILITY OF INFALLIBILITY. 115 



But, and God knows we do not say it as an idle jest, 
if tlie Bible and the Church differ so much the worse 
for the Bible, because the " Church " teaches that it 
alone can tell us what the Bible means, though to 
ordinary intellect the meaning and interpretation may 
be as plain as it can be. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE HISTORICAL FRAUDS OF THE ROMAN 
CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

" If any man have an ear, let him hear." — Rev. xiii. 9. 

THE outcome of a system which is established on 
fraud and ignorance can never be anything but 
demoralising and deplorable. God is the God of truth 
and justice ; and he is a God who abhors a lie, and 
has said so in the plainest language in His Word. 
Happily we may give the Roman Catholic laity the 
benefit of that invincible ignorance of which the 
Romanists are sometimes so liberal to us. But the 
only excuse for the Roman Catholic priesthood is that 
some of them at least are blinded by the mist of pre- 
judice in which all that concerns their religion is 
enveloped ; and I know well that there are hundreds 
of priests who have seen long since through these mists, 
and who know but too well all the frauds, historical 
and religious, which are necessary to keep up this 
system. 

Yet these unhappy men dare not speak. To say out 
boldly '' these things are not so " is to insure a con- 
demnation which will ruin the speaker for life. So, as 
one unhappy priest said to me, '' Some of us drown 
our misery in drink, some of us try to forget that 
there is a God, and many of us are simply infidels." 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 117 



And this is the outcome of the claim to infallibiHt}^ 
for which there is not one word of evidence in the 
Bible, and none in the early Fathers of the Church. 
Oh, what oceans of blood, what oceans of tears have 
been shed, and will yet be shed, to satisfy the ambition 
of man. It little matters whether this ambition is for 
the conquest of worldly kingdoms, or for the capture 
of souls. It is all the same human ambition ; and 
Rome will yet fill up the measure of her crimes when 
she proclaims the temporal power of the Church a 
dogma of faith, and there are signs that the hour for 
this proclamation is at hand. And yet there are 
Protestants, to whom both the Bible and history are 
open books, who do all in their power to forward this 
race for evil. 

I have said that the early Fathers are far from 
teaching or even approving the supremacy of Peter. 
Let me give the evidence of a Pope who had sufficient 
Christianity to denounce the very doctrine which his 
successors have made an article of faith. Gregory I. 
was a man of far-reaching views, and what was as 
important, he was a man of liberal education. He was 
born in Rome about the year 544, so that whatever 
evidence he has to give on this subject is the result 
of several centuries' experience ; for even then the 
bishops of Rome, as might be expected, had taken a 
very prominent place in the Christian Church. This 
place and this prominence would have been accorded 
to them willingly by the whole Christian world if they 
had not made it subsequently the ground for the most 
extravagant pretensions, and for the most preposterous 
claim of infallibility ; though it must be said they waited 
for the enlightened nineteenth century to enforce this 
claim. Before entering briefly upon the history of 



Ii8 IMSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



Gregory, and giving evidence of his denunciation of 
any claim on the part of the Bishop of .Rome to supreme 
rule in the Church, I wish to call attention to a point 
which has not received the notice it deserves. It is 
often thought that the Popes of Rome could never 
have attained the power which they wielded, especially 
in the Middle Ages, if they had not had Divine assist- 
ance. This is as much as to say that success is a 
sign of the Divine approval. If this were true, how 
many tyrants could claim a Divine right for their 
tyranny ? The simple fact is that the bishops of 
Rome came before the world with all the prestige of 
the rulers of imperial Rome. Rome was great even in 
its decay, and its decay was slow. When Rome ceased 
to persecute the Christians she had become in part at 
least Christian, and her military power, and her widely 
extended rule, gave a civil and social pre-eminence 
to the Bishop of Rome. Ambitious churchmen were 
not slow to take advantage of all this. At first we 
may hope it was a question of advancing the glory 
of God ; but like all human undertakings, even when 
begun for God, human motives and desires crept in, 
and the bishops of Rome soon began to use, for their 
own exaltation, the undoubted prestige w^hich their 
civil position gave them as bishops in a city of such 
eminence In any country the bishop of the chief town 
becomes naturally the most prominent bishop. 

All this is natural, and there is no reproach to a 
Church for placing the highest offices in the most im- 
portant places. It was thus undoubtedly that the claim 
for episcopal pre-eminence began, the opportunity was 
given, and human ambition used it. But it would never 
do for the Bishop of Rome to claim Divine and exclusive 
authority, without showing some ground for it. We 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 119 

all know how eas}^ it is to find a reason for what we 
are determined to do. The reason was at hand. The 
early Fathers, while they differed widel}^ as to the 
precise interpretation which should be put on the words 
of Christ to Peter, were almost unanimous in their 
praise of Peter. There is a very human side to the 
character of St. Peter, which wins our affection and 
our respect. If he denied Christ he loved Him ; and 
he made brave attempts to prove his love by a subse- 
quent life of devotion. The words addressed to Him 
by our Lord seemed capable of several interpretations, 
and the bishops of Rome were not slow to take the one 
which was the most favourable to themselves, and to 
keep the others out of sight. What, indeed, is the use 
of being all powerful if we cannot secure something 
for our own advantage thereby ? Even if the words 
addressed by our Lord to Peter made him the head 
of the Church, they do not convey to any rational 
mind any idea of succession in this office ; 3^et this 
is the only point of importance to the Roman 
Church. 

One thing is certain. This Pope Gregory L, of whom 
we have already spoken, declared emphatically in the 
sixth century that the Popes of Rome had no claim 
to be exclusive rulers of the Christian Church; and 
indeed there was even then a claimant other than 
the Bishop of Rome for the title of first Christian 
bishop, just as there was in the time of our Divine 
Lord a cry amongst the disciples who should be 
greatest. The Archbishop of Constantinople had 
claimed the title of Universal Bishop, another evidence 
that so late as the close of the sixteenth century there 
was no general acknowledgment of the Papal supre- 
macy. The Bishop of Alexandria thereupon wrote to 



120 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

the Bishop of Rome, who was then Gregory I., and 
addressed him as Universal Bishop. To this compH- 
ment the Pope repHed in these noble words, which 
remain on record to show that there was at least one 
" infallible " Pope who did not believe in Papal Supre- 
macy : — 

" If you give to me more than is due, you rob your- 
self of what is due to you. I choose to be distinguished 
by my conduct, and not by titles. Nothing can 
redound to my honour that redounds to the dishonour 
of my brethren. I place my honour in maintaining 
them in theirs. If you call me Universal Pope, you 
thereby own yourself to be no Pope. Let no such 
titles therefore be mentioned, or even heard amongst 
us. Your Holiness says in your letter that I command 
you. I command you ! I know who you are, and 
who I am. In rank you are my brother, by your 
conduct my father. I therefore did not command ; 
and beg you will henceforth forbear to use the word ; 
I only pointed out to you what I thought it right 
you should know." 

It should be carefully noted that the word Pope 
simply means father (^papd). Every bishop was a 
^' Papa " or ^' Pope " (father) in those ages, and in 
Russia every priest to-day is called a "Papa" or 
" Pope." So much of the prestige of the Roman 
Church is based on false pretences, which easily deceive 
the uneducated, that no opportunity should be lost of 
giving such explanations. It remained for the "papas" 
or Bishops of Rome to claim for themselves exclusively 
in later ages the title of " Pope." Who would suppose 
that false quotations w^ould be made, authorities cited 
which are well known to be worthless, and statements 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS'^ 121 



brought forward as true which have been repeatedly 
proved false, so as to influence those who have no op- 
portunit}^ of knowing whether they are genuine or not ? 
Indeed, the history of the Papal claims is so abstruse, 
and complicated with so many subjects, that it requires 
no ordinary research to understand it thoroughl}^ 
Let it be once more noted that Roman Catholics are 
forbidden to make independent research, it being, ac- 
cording to the great (Roman Catholic) authority of 
Cardinal Manning, " a treason to the Church to appeal 
to history/' 

As a matter of fact, it was the emperors who con- 
vened all the first General Councils and not the 
Popes, and my authority for this statement is the 
well-known Catholic writer Cardinal Baronius (born 

1538). 

Baronius tells us that the second General Council 
of Constantinople (a.d. 381) was convened by order 
of the Emperor Theodosius, and was held against the 
will of the Bishop of Rome {^^ reptignante Damaso 
celebrata "). This Council conferred a precedence of 
honour on the Bishop of Rome, but solely on the ground 
that Rome was the seat of empire or government. 
The third General Council, that of Ephesus (a.d. 431), 
was called by the Emperor, Theodosius the Younger. 
Leo L did his utmost to prevent the holding of this 
Council, but, having no jurisdiction, he failed in his 
attempt. The fourth General Council, Chalcedon 
(a.d. 451), was convoked by the Emperor Marcian. 
Pope Leo did all he could, even with tears, to persuade 
the Emperor not to call this Council. In this he failed. 
He then tried to have it held in Italy. In this he also 
failed. Having failed to prevent the holding of the 
Council of Chalcedon, he was represented at it by two 



122 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

legates, who attempted to prevent the passing of the 
famous twenty-eighth Canon, which declared that the 
Bishop of Constantinople should enjoy equal ecclesias- 
tical privileges with Rome. The legates opposed the 
passing of this Canon, but without avail, and rather 
than consent they withdrew. On their return they 
protested that the bishops had been coerced to sign, 
which was denied ; and the Canon was again put to 
the vote, and passed unanimously (the legates only 
dissenting), the bishops declaring that they had given 
their votes freely. That Canon, passed at a General 
Council, w^hich was attended by 630 bishops, not only 
stands unrepealed, but has been confirmed by subsequent 
Councils. This twenty-eighth Canon is all-important. 
A hteral translation is as follows : — 

" Everywhere following the decrees of the Holy 
Fathers, and acknowledging the Canon (which was 
lately read) of the 150 bishops most beloved of God, 
who were assembled under the Emperor Theodosius 
the Great, of pious memory, in the royal city of Con- 
stantinople, new Rome, we also decree and determine 
the same things concerning the privileges of the same 
most holy Church of Constantinople, i.e., new Rome. 
Because the Fathers rightly accorded privileges to the 
See of ancient Rome, inasmuch as that city was the 
seat of Empire — moved also by the same consideration, 
the 150 bishops, beloved of God, accorded equal 
privileges to the most holy See of new Rome, rightly 
judging that the city which was honoured by the 
Empire and the Senate, should both enjoy equal 
privileges with the elder Royal Rome, and also should, 
in ecclesiastical affairs, be extolled and magnified in 
no other manner, being second after her. We also 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 123 

ri.ecree that the Metropohtan of the dioceses of Pontus, 
Asia, and Thrace, as also the Bishops of their dioceses, 
who are among the barbarians (foreigners), shall be 
ordained b}^ the aforesaid most holy See of the most 
holy Church of Constantinople. To each of the 
Metropolitans also, of the same dioceses, together with 
the Bishops of the Province, it is allowed to ordain 
bishops, as it is proclaimed by the sacred canons. But 
the Metropolitans of these dioceses, as has been said, 
are to be ordained b}^ the Archbishop of Constantinople, 
after the proper elections have been made according 
to custom, and reported to him." 

These decisions of General Councils, the acts of 
which have been written and recorded by the highest 
Roman Catholic authorities, are of great importance, 
as they prove that whatever ecclesiastical pre-eminence 
Rome may have had in the earl}^ Church was due 
solely to the fact that Rome was the " seat of 
empire." 

This is a point of supreme importance in the whole 
controvers3\ It is no wonder that Rome claims and 
desires secular power, for it has been through the secular 
power, and through that alone, that she obtained her 
pre-eminence. 

The secular power is very willing to help religious 
authority when it suits her purpose to do so, and she is 
quite as ready to put down religious authority when it 
has served her purpose and can no longer be of use. 
Would to God that the Church had obeyed the precept 
of leaving to Caesar the things of Caesar. It is a strange 
religion which declares that it must have the power of 
the sword to enable it to teach the truths of the 
Gospel. 



124 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

But the Fathers not only differed with each other, 
but they also held different opinions at different 
periods of their hves, just as other people who are 
equally fallible may do. For example, St. Augustine 
says : — ■ 

'' It appears in many passages of Scripture that 
Peter represented the Church, and particularly in that 
place where it is said, ' I give to you the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. . . . For did Peter receive those keys, 
and did John and James and the other Apostles not 
receive them ? . . . What was given to him was given to 
the Church. Therefore, Peter represented the Church, 
and the Church was the body of Christ." 

In his *' Retractations," on the expression " the rock " 
he writes : — 

*' I have said in a certain passage respecting the 
Apostle Peter, that the Church upon him is founded as 
upon a rock. . . . But I know that I have frequently after- 
wards so expressed myself, that the phrase ' Upon this 
rock,' should be understood to be the rock which Peter 
confessed. For it was not said to him * Thou art 
petra ' but thou art Petrus, for the rock was Christ, 
Let the reader select which of these two opinions he 
deems the more probable." 

This is an amount of ''private judgment" that the 
Church of Rome will not permit. This opinion har- 
monised with the view taken by Augustine in his great 
work, " The City of God," where he tells us that he 
and his Church did not believe in Peter, but in Him 
in whom Peter believed. 

''Ut nos, qui sumus et vocamur Christian!, non 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 125 



in Petrum credimus, sed in quern credidit Petrus." 
We do not believe in Peter, but in what Peter be- 
lieved. 

Again in his 270th sermon : — 

''He says to them, 'But whom do 3'^e say I am?' 
and Peter, one for the rest, one for all, says, ' Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' This he 
said most rightly and truly; and he deservedly merited 
to receive such an answer : ' Blessed art thou, Simon 
Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to you, 
but My Father which is in heaven.' 'And I say unto 
thee,' because thou hast said this to Me, listen ; thou 
hast given me a confession, receive a blessing : there- 
fore, ' And I say unto thee, thou art Peter ; because I 
am petra, a rock, thou art Petrus ^ Peter ; for petra, the 
rock, is not from Petrus, Peter, but Petrus, Peter, is 
from petra, the rock ; for Christ is not so called frorii 
the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. ' And 
upon this rock I will build My Church,' not upon 
Peter." 

And in his 13th sermon he says : — - 

" Christ was the Rock, Peter figuratively the Christian 
people. . . . ' Therefore, He said, ' Thou art Peter,' etc. ; 
that is, I will build My Church on Myself, the Son of 
the living God. I will build thee on Myself, not Myself 
on Thee. For men willing to build upon men said, 
' I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, that 
is, Peter.' But others, who w^ere unwilling to be built 
on Peter, but would be built upon the rock, said, ' But 
I am of Christ.' But the Apostle Paul, when he knew 
that he was chosen, and Christ contemned, said, ' Is 
Christ divided ? Was Paul crucified for you, or were 



126 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ye baptised in the name of Paul ? ' Wherefore, as not 
in the name of Paul, so not in that of Peter, but on the 
name of Christ, that Peter may be built upon the rock, 
not the rock on Peter." 

In fact, though St. Augustine was the most volumi- 
nous, as well as the most revered Father of the early 
Church, there is not one hint in his writings from end 
to end that the Church of Rome had any priority of 
rule. In his eyes every bishop was equal ; and when 
he wrote his famous work condemning the Donatists 
he does not say one word of the necessity, nor does he 
even hint at any necessity, for their obeying the Roman 
Church. 

But will it be credited that the Church of Rome has 
actually placed some of the works of the Fathers on the 
index, though she praises them so highly when they 
agree with her ? 

The audacity of untruth can go no farther. We 
proceed to give proof of this. Even St. Augustine has 
not escaped the ''infallible" criticism of Rome, although 
Maldonatus, a Jesuit writer, has said of him, — 

" Augustine is an author of that esteem, that, were 
his opinions neither proved by Scriptures, nor reason, 
nor any other author, yet the sole reverence of his 
person deserves sufficient authority by itself." 

Yet there are no writings of the ancient Fathers 
which have suffered so much as those of Augustine at the 
hands of Romanists themselves. In the index, the con- 
demned passages, as found in various editions of 
Augustine's works, cover eleven closely printed folio 
pages, in double columns, from page 54 to page 64, 
both inclusive. 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS, 127 

In the " Belgian Expurgatory Index " published at 
Antwerp; 1571, at page 5, we read: — 

"We bear with many errors in the old Catholic 
writers ; we extenuate them ; we excuse them ; and 
by inventing some devised shift, we oftentimes deny 
them, and feign some commodious sense for them, -when 
they are objected to in disputations or conflicts with 
our adversaries." 

Having expurgated the writings of Augustine of all 
supposed heretical teaching, they have taken a bolder 
step by publishing his works, from which they have 
excluded everything savouring of "heresy," and re- 
pugnant to what they are pleased to call the " Catholic 
Faith." 

David Clement, in his " Bibliotheque Curieuse His 
torique et Critique," refers to the corrupted edition of 
Augustine's works, which was printed in Venice in 
1 5 70, in the following words : — 

"The editor warns us, as an honest man, that he has 
removed everything w^hich might infect Catholics with 
heresy, or cause them to turn from the orthodox faith." 

The same fact is recorded by Le Clerc in his " Biblio 
theque Universelle." Referring to the Venice edition 
of 1 5 70 he says : — 

" They inserted in the title that they had exercised 
great care to cause to be expunged everything that 
might possibly infect the souls of the faithful with any 
evil of heresy, or to draw them from the Catholic and 
orthodox faith." 

We give a very few of the passages or sentences 
from the writings of St. Augustine which the " infaUible " 



128 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Church of Rome has condemned in her *' Expurgatory 
Index," pubhshed at Madrid in 1667. Their signifi- 
cance will be obvious. 

"God alone is to be adored" (p. 56, col. 2). 

"Angels cannot be our mediators" (p. 59, col. 2). 

" Saints are unwiUing to be adored " (p. 57, col- 2 ). 

" Created beings are not to be worshipped nor 
adored" (p. 61, coi. i). 

" There are no mediators between us and God " 
(p. 60, col. i). 

"The dead have no concern for the living" (p. 59, 
col. i). 

"No help of mercy can be rendered to the dead" 
(p. 59, col. 1). 

"Saints are to be loved and imitated, but are not 
to be worshipped " (p. 59, col. 2). 

"Saints are to be honoured with imitation, but not 
with adoration" (Ibid.). 

"John left a forewarning against the invocation of 
saints " {Ibid.). 

" The holy dead, after this life, cannot help" (Ibid.), 

"It is a sacrilege to build temples to created beings" 
(p. 59, col. i). 

" It is wicked for Christians to place images of God 
in Churches " (p. 59, col. 2). 

" Mary, even in Christ's passion, doubted concerning 
Him " {Ibid:). 

" Mary was mother of Christ's humanity, not of His 
divinity" (p. 61, col. i). 

" The authority of the Scriptures, and not of Councils, 
is to be relied on " (p. 61, col. i). 

" Nothing is to be added to Christ's words " (p. 60, 
col. i). 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 129 

^' That the legends of samts are apocryphal" (p. 59, 
col. 2). 

"Confession is not necessary to salvation" (p. 61, 
col. i). 

" God forgives sins before confession passes the 
lips" (p. 58, col. i). . 

" That the Eucharist is not a sacrifice, but a memorial 
of a sacrifice " {Ibid.). 

" Christ commended to His disciples a figure of His 
body and blood " (p. 60, col. i). 

" The sacrament of the Eucharist, although visible, 
should nevertheless be understood in an invisible and 
spiritual manner " (p. 60, col. 2). 

'' Peter never claimed for himself a primacy. Petnts 
primahim sibi nunquam vindicavit^^ (p. 59; col. i).* 

Surely audacity and outrage on the dead could go 
no further. Even the opinions of the most distinguished 
Father of the Church must be made to harmonise with 
the opinions of modern popery. I remember when I 
was in England many years since, and when the great 
movement Romewards began under the auspices of 
Dr. Pusey and the Tractarians, that he published some 
works that had been written by Roman Catholics long 
since dead. In editing these books. Dr. Pusey thought 
proper to leave out any passages of which he did not 
approve ; and observed that these dead and gone 
saints would no doubt see things in heaven as he saw 
them on earth. Only the evident sincerity of Dr. Pusey 
could have saved him from the charge of intolerable 
pride, or of insufferable self-conceit. For any mortal 

* For these facts concerning St. Augustine's writings I acknow- 
ledge my indebtedness to Mr. C, H, Collette's "St. Augustine" 
(London: 1883). 



i30 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

man to say that the dead would approve of a change 
in their rehgious opinions, or of alteration in their 
writings, is too absurd, except for those who are so 
sure of their own infallibility as to assert that no one 
else can be right. 

I did not even know until some time after I had left . 
the Roman Catholic Church that this process had also 
been gone through by the Roman Church, on the 
writings of those very saints whose authority she so 
much approves, when she finds anything in it to support 
her own doctrine. How mortal man can be so blind 
as to cheat himself in this fashion is almost past human 
comprehension. A Roman Catholic politician may find 
an excuse if he strains a point to gain his end. He 
at least would gain easy absolution for such conduct 
from the very accommodating Jesuits ; but for Christian 
men to appeal to the Fathers as their authority for 
certain opinions, and then to cut out all the evidence 
W'hich is opposed to their wishes, seems too utterly 
wicked even for ordinary mortals. What shall it be 
termed in the case of those who call on the whole world 
to believe that they, and they only, are the true Church, 
and the only ambassadors of God ? 

But it is not only Augustine who has fared so 
treacherously at the hands of these unscrupulous fol- 
lowers of a God of truth. We give a few extracts 
from St. Jerome's teaching, premising that the quotations 
which we make are admitted to be portions of his 
genuine works, even by Romanists. He sa3^s : — 

^* Peter was an apostle, and John was an apostle ; 
but Peter was only an apostle, John both an apostle 
and evangelist, and also a prophet ; and, that I may, in 
brief speech, commend many things and show what 
privilege belonged to John, yea, virginity in John ; by 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. \%\ 



our Lord, a virgin, His mother, the virgin, is com- 
mended to the virgin disciple." 

^' In Jerusalem the Church was first founded, whence 
all other Churches throughout the world were planted." 

'' The Church does not consist of walls but of true 
doctrine, so that wherever the true faith is there is the 
Church." 

'' The Church has not gone out of her limits of 
the Holy Scripture, and from thence the timber and 
materials must be taken with which the house of 
wisdom is to be built." 

In his Epistle to Evagrius, he said: — 

" The Church of Rome is not to be thought one 
thing, and that of the whole world another. Gaul, 
Britain, Africa, Persia, the East Judea, and all the 
foreign nations adore also one Christ, and observe the 
same rule of truth. If authority is sought for, the 
world is greater than one city. Wherever there is a 
bishop, whether at Rome, Eugubium, Constantinople, 
Regium, Alexandria, or Tanais, he is of the same 
excellency, of the same episcopate. The power of 
wealth or the lowliness of poverty does not make a 
bishop either less or greater, for they are all the suc- 
cessors of the apostles. Why do you urge upon me 
the custom of a single city ? " 

Like all the Fathers, St. Jerome's opinions v/ere an 
uncertain quantity, and extracts may be made from his 
writings which can be distorted to mean that he looked 
upon the chair of Peter as having a certain supremacy ; 
but that he only intended a supremacy of position, and 
not a supremacy of Divine authority, is almost self- 
evident. Yet the edition of his writings published by 



132 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Erasmus, one of the most learned priests of the Church 
of Rome, was condemned because he did not omit 
the passages which went against Romish claims, and 
Erasmus himself was also condemned in no measured 
terms, although he lived and died a faithful son of the 
Church, and even used his able pen against the 
Reformers, so little mercy has Rome even for her most 
faithful and noblest sons if they do not submit abjectly 
to her least desires. 

There is a remarkable statement of Dr. Newman's 
to which I would call attention in this connection. It 
was published some time before he left the Protestant 
Church, and was intended to justify his position against 
the Church of Rome. Such a statement, coming from a 
man of his intellectual attainments and power of thought, 
deserves the most serious consideration. What an 
indictment it is against the Church of Rome ; perhaps 
a more severe charge never was made against that 
Church, considering the person who has made it, and 
the circumstances under which it was made. It does 
not lessen the force of this indictment that Dr. Newman 
has since left the Protestant Church, for he has not 
refuted this statement. On the contrary, he has been 
obliged to justify his change of opinion by one of the 
most remarkable arguments which has ever been offered 
to the human intellect for acceptance ; that the Church 
has power to '^ develop " new doctrines which may be, 
and certainly are, in direct opposition to those once 
delivered to the saints. Any one who can accept this 
mode of reasoning can believe at pleasure whatever a 
Church may say or do, no matter how contrary to 
revealed religion, since this power of "development" 
is claimed to be of Divine right, or it would be practically 
worthless. 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 133 

Dr. Newman, in his Lectures on the Prophetical 
Office of the Church, says : — 

'' The Fathers are only so far of use in the eyes of 
Romanists as they prove the Roman doctrines, and in 
no sense are allowed to interfere with the conclusions 
which their Church has adopted ; they are of authority 
when they seem to agree with Rome, of none if they 
differ" (p. 53). 

" How useless then is it to contend with Romanists, 
as if they practically agreed to our foundations, how- 
ever much they pretend to it. Ours is antiquity, theirs 
the existing Church " (p. 85). 

" According to the avowed or implied conviction of 
their most eminent divines, there is much actually to 
censure in the writings of the Fathers, much that is 
positively hostile to the Roman system " (p. 97). 

" As far as it is Catholic and scriptural, it (Romanism) 
appeals to the Fathers ; as far as it is a corruption it 
finds it necessary to supersede them " (p. 124). 

^' Enough has been said to show the hopelessness 
of our prospects in the controversy with Rome. We 
have her own avowal that the Fathers ought to be 
followed, and again, that she does not follow them. 
What more can we require than her witness against 
herself, which is here supplied us? If such inconsist- 
ency is not at once fatal to her claims, which it would 
seem to be, at least it is a most encouraging omen in 
our contest with her " (p. 99). 

In view of the rapid advance of Romanism in the 
United States, it is an affair of the deepest consequence 
to every Christian — as so many Protestants send their 
children to Roman Catholic institutions for education, 
and thereby deprive them deliberately of knowing the 



134 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

truths of history as well as the true state of the Roman . 
controversy — it is of supreme importance that such 
facts should be fully explained to the public. I shall 
now give two proofs of the way in which the young, 
and for that part of the matter the old, are deliberately 
deceived in books of instruction authorised and ap- 
proved by the Roman Church. In a work published 
in England by Father Bruno, entitled ^^ Cathohc Belief/' 
and which boasts of a circulation of half a million, we 
find the following statements : — 

" In the eleventh year after the Ascension of our 
Lord, which was the second year of the reign of the 
Roman Emperor Claudius, St. Peter left the Bishopric 
of Antioch, which he intrusted to Evodius, and chose 
for himself 'Rome. Before, however, going to Rome, 
he first went to Jerusalem. Then it was that Herod 
cast him into prison, as related in the Acts of the 
Apostles (chap. xii,). But being miraculously delivered 
by an angel from prison a second time, he made his 
way to Rome." 

'' St. Peter was the first to preach the Gospel in 
Rome." 

'' A Council was held, and after sufficient time had 
been given to debate, St. Peter, who was then Bishop 
of Rome, stood up, and referring to a special revelation 
made to him by God, declared that certain Jewish 
legalities were not binding on Christians ; which 
decision (?) was immediately confirmed by St. James, 
Bishop of Jerusalem, and by all the rest. (Acts 
XV. 8.)" 

Now mark the painful and deliberate duplicity of 
these statements, and remember that every Roman 
Catholic reading this is bound to believe it, for it is 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 135 

issued with the imprimatur of the authorities of the 
" Church." Remember the immense force and power 
of early impressions, and that even a Protestant child 
brought up in a convent school, and trusting with the 
implicit, and I may say holy, trust of childhood in 
those who teach her, will accept all this fiction as fact, 
and in later life will be influenced by it to her eternal 
injury. How could a child suspect that there would 
be deliberate deceit "on the part of the priest or the 
sister ? And as for the poor sister, she is as ignorant 
as the child. She has no means of verifying the 
statements placed in her hands, and which she is 
ordered to teach. She, too, takes them on the word of 
the '' Church," in which she also has been taught to 
believe in her youth, and which she would think it 
treason of the worst kind to doubt. Now let us examine 
these statements ; the time will not be lost. 

First let it be noted that a certain statement is made 
by the highest Roman Catholic authority as a simple 
fact, and is therefore accepted as a fact by the reader. 
It is said that " Peter made his way to Rome." Now 
there is not one single historical proof of this statement, 
the object of which is to connect Peter with the Church 
in Rome. The Bible tells us that it was there St. Paul 
taught for so many years ; and as he has mentioned 
in his Epistles the names of those who preached the 
Gospel with him there, it is certain that St. Peter was 
not at Rome when St. Paul wrote, as he never mentions 
his name. In fact, as the Bible tells us, St. Peter was 
occupied for the greater part of his life in preaching to 
the circumcision (the Jews), and we are also told this 
was the work appointed for him by God Himself (Gal. ii.). 
But the plainest statements of the Bible are of as little 
account to Rome as the statements of the Fathers, which. 



136 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

according to Dr. Newman, they use only for their own 
purposes. What is the use of being infalHble if you 
are obliged to give any proof of what you advance ? 
The great advantage of infallibility is that you are above 
all arguments. 

First; there is no evidence, nor has the Roman Church 
produced any evidence, to show that St. Peter was 
Bishop of Rome or, for that part of the matter, that he 
was bishop anywhere. The apostles had a work of their 
own to do, quite different from the work of a bishop ; 
and it was their Divine and blessed duty to go round to 
all the Churches teaching and strengthening them, as we 
find them doing. As the Church of Rome has no proof 
whatever of the statement that St. Peter was " Bishop 
of Rome" for twentj^-five years, its theologians are 
driven to such statements as these — ''As it cannot be 
supposed that St. Peter had no see during the last 
twenty-five years of his life, if he was not Bishop of 
Rome, of what other see was he bishop ? " 

It is on such suppositions and such childish reason- 
ing that Rome builds the fabric of the most stupendous 
assertions. All this might do very well in a novel, 
but it is a poor support for a creed. And once again, 
what shall be said of those who put these " supposes " 
and "ifs" before the young as undoubted and un- 
questioned facts ? We are not told, either in Scripture 
or history, neither by God nor man, of what place St. 
Peter was bishop, or that he was a bishop. We only 
know that he was an Apostle. 

To the true Catholic and Christian Church all this 
is a matter of very little moment, since that Church has 
not to maintain a claim of infallibility at the expense 
of truth. 

If St. Peter was bishop anywhere, all authorities. 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. I37 

even Roman Catholic, go to show that it was at Antioch. 
Indeed, this very writer claims that St. Peter was Bishop 
of Antioch " for a time." If so, then Antioch was the 
first see which St. Peter founded, and it should, on 
Roman Catholic principles, be the head of the Catholic 
Church. But the city of Antioch had not the temporal 
power of the city of Rome, nor the same worldly 
advantages ; hence its claims are quietly ignored. How 
many Roman Catholics are aware of this phase of 
the controversy ? Everything that would cast even 
the least shade on the face of the claim of Rome is 
quietly ignored, and the unhappy Romanist is led to 
believe that there is nothing to be said on the other 
side. 

I shall never forget my own amazement when I 
learned for the first time that there was a Church, 
which even the Church of Rome is obliged to admit, 
has the very same orders as she has, the same priestly 
power, and valid sacraments also. The Greek Church, 
with its millions of believers, is as much a "true 
Church " as the Church of Rome, even according to 
the authorised teaching of the Church of Rome. 

If a priest of the Greek Church enters the Church of 
Rome he is received as a priest, his orders are acknow- 
ledged, and he can say Mass at once, without receiving 
new orders. I believe it would surprise Romanists 
not a little if this fact were generally known, as it 
should be. I believe that the great majority of 
Romanists would deny this statement with indignation, 
and yet it is well known to the world at large, and 
cannot be denied by Romanists, though its significance 
in the Roman controversy may not be known to 
Protestants. Furthermore, the priests of the Greek 
Church are all allowed to marry, and are encouraged 



138 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



to marry. Rome tries to make the world believe that 
she alone has the claim to sacerdotal power. Yet here 
is a Church the validity of whose orders and priesthood 
she dares not even question, yet which differs from 
her in refusing to admit the unscriptural claim of the 
Pope to be the head of Christendom. 

Certainly Rome does well to keep her people in 
ignorance. The entrance of light would dispel too 
much darkness. Let Protestants begin to spread the 
light. Let them take every opportunity of telling their 
Roman Catholic friends, quietly and patiently, some of 
the facts of history, and those plain truths which Rome 
cannot deny, however seriously they make against her 
pretensions. And it should be noted here that the 
reason why Rome is so anxious to prevent intercourse 
between Protestants and Romanists is, that the truth 
about her claims would thereby inevitably come out, 
and Romanists, once convinced that they have been 
deliberately deceived in one matter, would begin to 
lose their faith in all. Let Protestants never forget 
the duty and the privilege which God has bestowed 
on them. Let them, above all, remember the patience 
which is necessary with those who have been educated 
in darkness, and how terrible is the first awakening to 
the long deception which Rome has practised on her 
unhappy followers. A word in season, and only a 
word, will be of more avail than days and weeks of 
noisy argument. I know a case where a Romanist 
was led to serious inquiry by the remark that St. 
Peter had a wife, and by being shown the passage of 
Scripture which proves this in the Douay Bible, and 
by caUing her attention to the way in which our Lord 
showed His approval of St. Peter's marriage by healing 
his wife's mother when she was sick of a fever. The 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 139 



natural conclusion from this was as it should be — Why 
does the Church of Rome forbid her priests to marry ? 
A command which leads to the commission of the 
grossest sins. 

It seems scarcely necessary to point out any more 
Roman Catholic deceptions, but the importance of 
having accurate knowledge on these points is of such 
moment that I maybe excused by some, and I hope I may 
be of service to many, if I dwell a little longer on this 
subject. We may well ask why it was, if St. Peter was 
twenty-five years in Rome with St. Paul, whom no one 
disputes was there, that St. Paul, writing from Rome, 
says, " Only Mark is with me " ? Observe in the 
second quotation which I have given from this men- 
dacious Roman Catholic work, the barefaced statement 
that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome when the memorable 
Council was held at Jerusalem. (Acts xv.) This is 
quietly asserted, though there is not one word of proof 
given, for the very simple reason that neither Scripture 
nor history say one word on this subject. If the 
passage is noted carefully it will be seen into what 
ridiculous inconsistencies Rome is driven. Let us 
admit that " St. Peter was then Bishop of Rome," and 
what do we find? Not tha^he was asked to settle the 
matter in question, as he would have been if our Lord 
had made him the head of the Church, but that it was 
settled by St. James. As a matter of fact, St. Peter 
gave no decision ; for Scripture tells us that he only 
gave an opinion as the rest did, including Barnabas 
and Paul. 

In fact, far from the Council being called together to 
hear the decision of .St. Peter, it was called for the 
sensible purpose of having a general discussion on a 
most important pomt; and St. Peter simply gave his 



140 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

opinion as the others did. How, in the face of this 
narrative, any Pope can claim to do what St. Peter did 
not do is marvellous. The circumstance certainly may 
be pointed to as an evidence that the whole Church 
assembled in Council has a power to decide contro- 
versies ; but that is a very different matter from saying 
that St. Peter had this power exclusively. This modern 
claim simply places the Popes above St. Peter in power 
and dignity. If St. Peter had the power granted him 
by our Divine Lord to give the final decision in matters 
of faith, here is a case in which he could, and most 
certainly would, have exercised this power; and the 
Apostles would have been too well aware of our Lord's 
teaching to have opposed His claim if such a claim 
had existed. 

But here is Scripture testimony to the undeniable 
fact that it was St. James, the local bishop, who decided 
the important question. The very words used by 
St, James are sufficient to settle the matter. He says 
'^my sentence is." If St. Peter had a right to decide 
he would have said most certainly the sentence of St. 
Peter is so-and-so ; but there is not one trace of special 
deference to his opinion in the whole aftair, and this is 
the first Council held in the true Catholic Church. How 
different in its inception and in its result from the 
Councils of the Roman Church, which certainly is not 
Catholic in its following of the Apostles. In this 
chapter also we find that whatever was decided was 
not by Peter but by ^' the Apostles and elders and 
brethren." (Acts xv.) How different this from Papal 
rule, which will not even listen to the least suggestion of 
the brethren. It should be clearly understood by Protest- 
ants, and for that matter by Romanists, that the Council 
which abandoned the infallibility of the Church for the 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 141 

infallibility of the Pope a few years since, not only 
made the Pope (Pius IX.) infaUible, but also made all 
the Popes infallible who had preceded him. It is by 
no means clear whether the Pope made himself in- 
faUible, or whether he got the Council to do the deed. 
It is only certain that the deed was done. But it is 
difficult for the ordinary mind to understand why, if 
the Pope was infallible all the time, it was necessary 
to wait till the nineteenth century to discover it, or 
why, if he was really infallible, he could not have 
said so himself, and arranged the matter without the 
Council. 

One thing is certain. The Council was not at all 
unanimous about the same infallibility. It was 
necessary, however, for the Pope to compel some 
appearance of unanimity before he could avail himself 
of the honour which he so greatly coveted. We append 
here some extracts from the early Fathers of the Church, 
taken from Roman Catholic writers, which should 
for ever silence all dispute as to their opinion on 
infallibility, and Roman claims of jurisdiction. 

The earliest mention of Peter's name is in that First 
Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter v., which is attributed 
to Clement. Clement is alleged to have been Bishop of 
Rome from a.d. 92 — loi, and by some to have been 
appointed bishop by Peter himself. His testimony 
is very important. Writing to the Corinthians, he 
said, — 

" Let us have before our eyes the excellent Apostles. 
Peter, through unjust envy, underwent not one or two, 
but many sufferings ; and thus being martyred, went to 
the place of glory that was due to him. Through envy 
Paul also receives the reward of patience. Seven times 



142 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

he was in bonds ; he was whipped and stoned. He 
preached in the east and west, leaving behind him the 
glorious report of his death ; when, after he had taught 
the whole world righteousness, and had come to the 
borders of the west, he suffered martyrdom under the 
rulers." 

Clement says little of Peter, but much of Paul. His 
mind seems to have been more directed to the mission 
of the latter than to that of the former, and he makes 
no distinction of rank between them. 

Neither Hermes (a.d. 70), Barnabas (a.d. 73), nor 
Polycarp (a.d. 108), even mention the name of Peter. 

The next writer who names Peter is Ignatius 
(a.d. 107). Writing from Antioch, he said, " I do not 
command you (Romans) as did Peter and Paul ; they 
were Apostles, I am a condemned man. They were 
free, but I am, even this da}^, a servant." But no 
reliance can be placed on the correctness of the text of 
this epistle, for the best critics are agreed that it has 
been tampered with. It would seem to imply that 
Peter and Paul taught the Romans, but it does not 
imply that Peter was Bishop of Rome, any more than 
Paul ; and it should be noted that the Epistle is not 
addressed to the Bishop of Rome, but to the Christians 
at Rome. 

We next hear of Peter in a fragment of an Epistle 
written by Dionysius of Corinth to Soter, Bishop of 
Rome (a.d. 170), preserved by Eusebius : — "So you 
also, by an admonition so valuable, have again united 
the planting of the Romans and Corinthians, which was 
by the hands of Peter and Paul. For both came to 
visit Corinth, and planted us, both alike taught, and 
alike went to Italy ; and having taught together, they 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 143 

gave their testimony about the same time " {Ap, Euseb., 
ii. 25). 

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (a.d. 178-200), tells us 
that the Church of Rome was founded by ^' the two 
glorious Apostles Peter and Paul," and the Apostles 
having founded and built that Church, committed the 
sacred office of the Episcopate to Linus. He enume- 
rates by name all the bishops to his day — Eleutherius — 
whom he reckons as the twelfth bishop, naming Linus 
as the first bishop. He therefore excludes both Peter 
and Paul in that capacit3^ But even in this he is 
contradicted by Tertullian, who tells us that Peter 
appointed Clement as first bishop, another of the 
countless proofs that the ^* Fathers " did not always 
agree either in doctrine or chronology. 

The "ApostoHc Constitutions" represent Linus as 
having been appointed first Bishop of Rome by Paul, 
and Clement after the death of Linus by Peter. The 
date assigned to these '^ Constitutions " is a.d. 270. 

The writings of Irenseus are preserved chiefly in a 
Latin translation by Eusebius, the ecclesiastical his- 
torian. Valesius, a learned Roman Catholic com- 
mentator on this work, observes : '' Irenseus, as well as 
Eusebius, says that Peter and Paul laid the first foun- 
dation of the Church which was at Rome ; but these 
writers nowhere reckon them among the first bishops 
of the Church." He also states that '^ the Apostles had 
a rank peculiar to themselves, nor were they ever 
reckoned among the bishops of the Churches." 

The works of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (a.d. 250), 
have been mutilated ; but though he speaks in eulogistic 
terms of Peter he distinctly .says : " That the rest of 
the Apostles were even the same that Peter was, being 
endowed with the like fellowship, honour, and power." 



144 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

We meet in the writings of this Father, and particularly 
in the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, the 
expression '' The Chair of Peter." Romanists at once 
exclusively appropriate the term to the Church of Rome. 
But the designation was equally applied to Antioch, 
Alexandria, and other cities. Indeed, it can be easily 
shown that by the term " chair " doctrine was meant, 
and, to repeat the words of Augustine in his great work 
on the '' Unity of the Church," '^ We who call ourselves 
Christians do not believe in Peter, but in what Peter 
taught." There is a remarkable passage in one of the 
Epistles of Pope Gregory I., who wrote at the beginning 
of the seventh century, addressed to Eulogius, Bishop 
of Alexandria. Gregory refers to each branch of what 
he termed the triple See of St. Peter — Rome, Alexandria, 
and Antioch — as having equal claims with one another 
both in honour and authority ; and in the same Epistle 
he disclaimed any special honour to himself, inasmuch, 
he said, as the Bishop of Alexandria, to whom he was 
writing, was himself one of St. Peter's successors. 

We now come to Eusebius, ^' the Father of Ecclesi- 
astical History " as he is called ; for in his great work, 
which he wrote about a.d. 320, he has recorded every 
circumstance then extant connected with the history of 
the Church. He refers to Peter's alleged visit to Rome, 
which he puts down as during the reign of Claudius. 
And even here Valesius, his learned Roman Catholic 
commentator, says Eusebius must be mistaken as to 
time, for the alleged visit during the reign of Claudius 
would contradict histor}^, as related in the Acts of the 
Apostles. And nowhere does Eusebius state that Peter 
ever was Bishop of Rome, which, if a known fact, he 
could not have omitted to state. The heading of the 
second chapter of his third book is ''the first {pi'otos) 



HISTORICAL FRAUDS. 145 



that presided over the Church of Rome." " After the 
martyrdom of Paul and Peter, Linus was the first that 
was elected to the Bishopric of the Roman See." 

Yet we are informed in " Catholic Belief " that Peter 
reigned in Rome for twenty-five years. There is, as I 
have said, a proverb, '' Lie, and lie boldly." How sad 
it is that a Church, even nominally Christian, should 
carry out such principle. 



10 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God, not 
self-willed, not soon angry." — Titus i. 7. 

IT is certain, as we have said in the last chapter, 
that there was very far from being any real 
unanimity in the Vatican Council on the question of 
the personal infallibility of the Pope. But what were 
the opposition to do ? The bishops were summoned 
for the purpose of declaring the Pope infallible, and woe 
to him w^ho dared to object. We must pause before we 
condemn those who wished to do so, and did not. Let it 
be remembered that they had all been brought up from 
their earliest years in a slavish system of compulsory 
obedience, that submission to the Pope had been the 
rule of the Church for centuries. We must take into 
account the force of multitude, and remember that 
while the consequences of objection would certainly be 
serious in this world, it might also bring suffering in 
the next, according to the teachings of the Church; 
yet there were some who had the courage of their 
opinions. 

The Bishop of Kerry, Dr. Moriarty, was, to my 
personal knowledge, one of those who was strongly 
opposed to the new decree. I heard from his very 
lips the sad announcement that he had voted against 



HOJV THE POPE IVAS .MADE INFALLIBLE. 14: 



his conscience, and that to his certain knowledge many 
other bishops had done the same. What a specimen 
of infaUible teaching ! Certainly St. Peter would not 
have required this in the Council of Jerusalem. But 
this good bishop was not alone in his grief. And here, 
let it be noted, that remote and careful preparation 
was made for the declaration of the Pope's personal 
infallibility some time before the Council was convened, 
just as remote and careful preparation is now being 
made for proclaiming it an article of faith that the 
Pope must be a temporal sovereign. Well, indeed, 
will it be for those who have the wisdom to note these 
signs of the times ere it be too late. In August, 1868, 
the New York Catholic World, the mouthpiece of the 
Romanists in America, in commenting, as in duty — 
shall we say bound or obliged ? —on the recently issued 
Syllabus, declared that every Catholic must yield 
obedience to the Pope under pain of sin, when he 
administers discipline, or issues orders. 

The Roman Catholic press of America is taking 
precisely the same torie in regard to the temporal power 
of the Pope ; and it is perfect^ plain to every unpre- 
judiced mind that the great battle for the temporal 
supremacy of the Pope will be fought out in America. 
The following extracts from the Roman Catholic Weekly, 
a paper published with full episcopal approbation in 
Albany, New York State, will show the tendency of 
Romanists in this direction. It says : — 

*' Now whilst there may be some difficulty in classi- 
fying these gentlemen our friends, there is and can be 
no difficulty in locating the Catholic Weekly. There is 
no crookedness nor trickery in our title or mission. 
We are Catholic first, last, and all the time. Our 



148 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

career is to enlighten Catholics of every nationality, 
and to defend the Church against every comer, no 
matter who or what he is. We are not, we humbly 
admit, endowed with that intellectual finesse that, like 
our friends (?), can draw a hard and fast line between 
the Church and the Pope, and put him on one side and 
the Church on the other. To our child-like and simple 
intellect both are the same. When the Pope speaks, 
the Church speaks, and when the Church speaks God 
speaks. We have been always trained to think in this 
old-fashioned groove, and now that we have grown to 
manhood we cannot shake it off. The Church would 
be in a sorry plight if it did not live in the Pope {sic). 
Like a football, it would be kicked about by every 
political tyrant or intellectual crank. We do not even 
make the distinctions of the learned between infallible 
and non-infallible utterances. We are in such awe of 
his name, his office, and his functions, that to us the 
least official of his pronouncements is freighted with 
the will and voice of God. 

'^ To betray him would be the basest of betrayals, to 
be disloyal to him is a treachery, the blackest among 
men, to our thinking. Every other consideration is 
subservient to his authority and the welfare of the 
Church. What lies beyond this territory is secondary, 
and incidental. Though we love our country dearly, we 
love our Church more, and the Pope more. We cannot 
recognise any aid which our country may give us to 
reach Heaven, and we do not recognise, we cannot reach 
that blessed goal without the Church and the Pope." 

What miserable, what unchristian words are these : 
*' The Church would be in a sorry plight if it did not 
live in the Pope." One marvels if the man who wrote 
these words ever read the Scriptures, which tell us that 



HOJV THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 149 

the Apostles gloried in living in Christ. Truly all this 
looks but too like the great apostasy, when the man of 
sin (and many of the Popes have been indeed men of 
sin) shall sit in the temple of God, showing himself 
that he is God. Remember that there is no qualification, 
no words to modify this awful — may we not say ? — 
blasphemy. The utterances of the Pope, whether 
fallible or infallible, are to be considered as the '' voice 
of God," and to disobey or question is crime. If the 
Pope approves of incest we must also approve it. If 
Popes in past ages had innumerable illegitimate children, 
we must respect their decisions with holy awe when 
they appoint these children of sin to the highest places 
in the Church, as Popes have done again and again. 
Protestants have yet to learn all that is involved in 
this claim of infallibility. 

A belief in the temporal power of the Pope is not, 
I again repeat, an article of the Roman Catholic faith at 
present ; but there are thousands of men, like the editor 
of the Albany paper, who are ready to receive it at a 
moment's notice,and already there are numerous Roman 
Catholic publications preparing the way actively for 
its acceptance. But what need is there for a formal 
proclamation of this doctrine, when it is involved in 
the very doctrine already proclaimed ? The claim of 
spiritual infallibility made by the Roman Church must 
not be disputed. But as there is no question of 
public government, or politics, which cannot be made 
a religious question, the Pope is practically, to his fol- 
lowers, an infallible authority in all temporal affairs. 
He claims to be the judge, and a judge from whose 
decisions there is no appeal, as to whether any political 
question comes under his jurisdiction or not. What 
could the most bigoted Romanist desire more ? 



ISO INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



The constitutions of the United States, and the laws 
of England, were framed for the general good, and the 
protection of every individual. The preamble to the 
constitution of the United States says that its laws 
were established " in order to form a more perfect 
union, to establish justice . . . and to secure the bless- 
ings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." 
Certainly the framers did not foresee a time when the 
permission of the Pope, and not the approval of the laws 
of the State, would be necessary even to allow the 
existence of a body of men united for the purpose of 
advancing the interest of labour. Yet the American 
society, known as the Knights of Labour, had to place 
their regulations in the hands of Cardinal Gibbons, and 
to submit them humbly for approval, not to the govern- 
ment of the United States, but to the Pope of Rome. 

It is certainly amazing how the American people, who 
profess to set such a high value on their liberty, can 
allow themselves to be quietly made the slaves of 
Rome. Dr. Brownson, an em.inent writer in the Romish 
Church, of whom the same Church had a wholesale 
fear during his lifetime, as he was a man whom they 
well knew would not hesitate to strike even Rome, 
if Rome offended him, spoke out very plainly, as most 
fanatics will do. Authorised by the Church, which 
certainly applauded him when he made such utterances, 
he declared that it would be '^ an intolerable tyranny 
to be obliged to obey the State, if the State was not 
under the control of the Church." 

Another important outcome of this claim of poHtical 
infallibility in the government of the world, is the 
Church's alleged right to punish heretics. The very 
politicians who to-da}?^ are fawning at the feet of the 
Archbishop of New York, and Cardinal Gibbons, may 



no IV THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. i;i 



yet know, to their cost, how Rome can persecute when 
once she has the power. A Protestant paper in New 
York expresses its sympathy with Leo XIII. because 
he was insulted "for the sins of Popes who burned 
heretics three hundred years ago." Does not the sym- 
pathiser know that the law which commands the 
destruction of heretics, by fire or sword, still exists, 
and would be put in force if only the infallible Church 
had the power to do so ? This is the extract : — 

^'Why should this poor old man, who has done 
nothing but good, be insulted for the sins of Popes 
who burned rebellious friars three hundred years 
ago 



7> " 



It is the false charity of men like the writer in the 
New York Churchman v/hich is the great help of the 
Roman Church. The claws of the tiger are there, and 
they are not blunted: The duty of the Church to 
persecute is just the same as it was in the days when 
the hapless Bruno was committed to the flames. The 
Church of Rome only ceases open persecution because 
she cannot do it, — the will is there but not the power ; 
but the time is fast coming, through the instrumentality, 
not of Romanists — for the vast multitude of Romanists 
are absolutely indifferent to the Church to which they 
nominally belong — but through the instrumentality of 
'' liberal " Protestants, when Rome will have the power 
to persecute, and then the Liberal Protestant will fare 
as badly at the hands of that Church which he has 
served so well, as the most illiberal radical. 

It would be well if Protestants of the extreme " High 
Church " type could realize how little respect Rome has 
for them. The more Roman, or, as they are pleased 
to term it, the more " Catholic " they become, the more 



152 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ridiculous they appear to Romanists. It is true that 
Rome sometimes hides her sneers, when there is fear 
of offending a milHonaire, but she does not on that 
account change her real sentiments. An article which 
we give below will be amusing to some, and we hope 
instructive to those who imagine they are approved 
by Rome, because they are imitating her practices. 

The Rev. Philip Fletcher, a Roman Catholic priest, 
and formerly curate of a Ritualistic Church at Brighton, 
writes as follows in the Weekly Register : — 

^' Some of these Anglican neighbours have extra- 
ordinary impudence. Though they don't live in our 
house, but have got one of their own, though they 
don't even intend to quit their own residence and come 
and dwell in one which has foundations, yet they are 
for ever poking about our premises, and picking up 
what they can find ; and having found something 
though it does not belong to them, they carry it off and 
stick it in their own garden, though it won't grow 
there, or nail it up on their walls, though it doesn't 
suit their furniture a bit. Yes, ' his neighbour comet h 
and searcheth him.' He does, indeed. Now, if they 
came to search us from good motives, we would not 
mind. Some of them do, and we are always then glad 
to see them. We show them over everywhere, and 
explain the whole plan of the Catholic house and 
grounds. Such as these come to see if our house is 
better than their own. It is not difficult to prove to 
them that it is so, for many of us have lived in that 
house of theirs, and right glad we are to have got out 
of it. Nothing but noise, and quarreUing, and brawhng 
from morning to night. A regular babel of confusion. 
Even those of us who were never inside of it can see 



HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 153 



and hear what goes on, for the AngHcan walls are 
very thin ; and what they see and hear offers them no 
temptation to seek shelter under that noisy roof. But 
there are, as I say, others of these neighbours of ours 
who ' come and search ' with no such worthy motive. 
No ; but they want to patch up their own tumble-down 
dwelling with odds and ends from Catholic sources, in 
order to make more short-sighted people imagine that 
theirs is the Catholic Church. So they make raids 
upon our possessions, and then pass them off as their 
own, generally, however, breaking them in the process. 
The Ritualist parson, especially one, goes abroad, and 
e.g.^ sees a sacred minister, after a Requiem Mass, 
bearing the Processional Cross ; so when he gets home 
he has a procession on Sundays, before or after (or 
probably both) his Sunday High Celebrations, with a 
bearded clergyman in a Dalmatic and a bad temper (at 
having to carry what the butcher in a surplice used 
to do), bearing the cross in front of a long line of 
processionists. He attends a Pontifical High Mass, 
and sees some one in a cope in close attendance at the 
altar ; so, on his return, he immediately pops his 
master of ceremonies into a cope, who flits about 
delighted with his investiture, and orders people about 
more commandingly than ever. He sees the red lamp 
burning before the tabernacle in every Catholic Church, 
and he thinks, ' How sweet it would be to have the 
same thing at home ; ' but having no tabernacle he 
makes up by having seven red lamps instead of one ; 
and to make the illusion more perfect, has a sham 
tabernacle painted or carved behind his communion 
table. He looks into a Roman Missal, and sees that 
there are no commandments, so he leaves them out 
at his ' early celebration ' (like a naughty boy, * when 



154 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



nobody is looking '). He notices * Secreta/ and 
' Canon/ and ' Memento for the Dead/ and ' Post 
Communions/ which are not in the ^ Book of Common 
Prayer ; ' but that doesn't matter a bit ; he soon 
stitches them in. He happens upon a ' Garden of 
the Soul/ and finds warm, stirring solid devotions, 
which are unknown to cold, formal Anglicanism ; so he 
makes up a * Book of Devotions,' adapted to members 
of the Church of England, in which he calmly palms 
off as Anglican devotions what was written by most 
Roman and utterly anti-Anglican authors ; and in 
order to hinder recognition of their true origin, he 
mutilates these devotions so as to fit in with Anglican 
fads and fancies. And then he glories in being * so 
Roman,' and no doubt thinks he is a very fine bird, 
though there are plenty of more knowing birds behind 
him who are laughing in their sleeves, and out of them, 
at the foolish jackdaw strutting about in feathers not 
its own." 

I know, and many others know, that the Church 
of Rome of to-day persecutes as far as she dares, 
shielded and helped by ''liberal" Protestants, who 
are so very liberal of the lives and" liberties of others, 
and have so very little sympathy for their sufferings. 
Why cannot Protestants be Protestants, and men ? 
Why do they lie down and worship at the very feet 
of that power which, whatever toleration it may have 
for other Protestants, has nothing but words of the 
utmost contempt for those who are Protestants without 
liberty. Papists without a Pope, and Catholics without 
unity ? 

" Popular feeling," says a Protestant writer, '' is 
mostly for the Pope." I was in Rome not long since, 



HOW THE POPE M^AS MADE INFALLIBLE. 155 



and I know, for I took the trouble to inquire even 
then, Romanist as I was, and I solemnly declare that 
"popular feeling" was altogether against the Pope. 
Against himself personally there was not a bad feeling, 
but he represents a system which the Roman and 
Italian people know too well has been the curse of 
their country, and as the administrator of that system 
he is justly hated. '' The Pope," says this writer, '' has 
done nothing but good." Is it then good to show the 
whole world how he sympathises with his predecessor 
in the burning of heretics ? Keed we say more ? A 
rebelhous friar ! How easy it is to take away cha- 
racter ! Just so Dr. McGlynn is '' a rebellious friar ; " 
and presumabl}' this writer in a first-class paper, repre- 
senting the opinion of the whole Episcopal Church 
of the United States, would like to assist Archbishop 
Corrigan in burning him alive also, before the City 
Hall in New York, and he would be able to command 
the assistance and the sympathy of a considerable 
number of men who agree with him in their condolences 
w^ith the Pope, because the people of Italy have shown 
their respect for a martyr of liberty. 

But these ardent '* Protestant " sympathisers with 
the Pope are the veriest heretics in his eyes, and they 
would certainly be led to the stake in short order, after 
an example had been made of Dr. McGlynn and myself, 
if it was in the power of Archbishop Corrigan to inflict 
it. Nor do I blame him ; he would simply be carrying 
out the orders of the infallible Church to which he 
belongs. Has he not shown how he would like to 
punish, if he dare, when he sentenced a priest to ten 
days' imprisonment, and penance in a monastery, and 
this in free America, because he said one little word in 
disapproval of the way in which^ Dr. McGlynn was 



156 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



treated ? The Archbishop sentenced a sister to Black- 
wall's Island as an insane person, because, according 
to her statement to myself, she had denounced conduct 
which she justly considered shameful between a priest, 
and the Lady Superior of the convent where she was 
a nun. If men cry, Peace, peace, where there is no 
peace, it would matter little if they were the only 
victims of their folly, but the danger will not end with 
their lives. It may require another generation of 
^' liberal Protestants " to secure for Rome the full 
power to persecute. 

Protestants of this class, and every intelligent human 
being, should know that the Church of Rome requires 
every bishop to take a solemn oath at his consecration 
to persecute heretics. The oath has been published, 
and — to his credit be it said — by a High Churchman, 
who has the common sense to see that the Church of 
England gains no respect from Rome, nor strength for 
herself, by laying herself at the feet of the Pope. * 

The editor of the document from which I quote, the 
Rev. John M. Davenport, comments thus on the velvet- 
paw policy of Rome : — 

" The cities just named have bitter experience of this 
velvet-paw treachery. They have harboured a religion 
all smiles and affability while in low estate ; they have 
been flattered into giving it pecuniary and political 
aid ; they have with kindly spirit patronised its bazaars 
and lotteries ; and yet what is the return ? Exchange 
of kindnesses ? Far from it. It combines to plot 

* This important document can be obtained from the publisher, 
George A. Knodell, St. John, N.B. It can also be seen in the latest 
edition of the " Roman Pontifical." 



HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 157 



against and crush its benefactors, and to boycott them 
out of office and existence. Boston is the only city cf 
the four which has revolted somewhat successfully 
against the tyranny. New York groans under its 
papal fetters, and a press controlled by the Roman 
Catholic Church. Quebec has become almost wholly 
Roman by the exodus of the rising generation of 
English people, not strong enough to withstand the 
trade boycott, while the non-Roman population of 
Montreal is outnumbered by the Roman in the propor- 
tion of three to one ; and yet the minority have to pay 
more taxes than all the rest put together, as the Roman 
Church, though rolling in wealth, has managed to 
exempt its vast property from taxation." 

In September, 185 1, the Rambler ^ a Roman Catholic 
Magazine published in England, wrote thus : — 

"A Catholic temporal government would be guided 
in its treatment of Protestants and other recusants 
solely by the rules of expediency. . . . None but an 
atheist can uphold the principles of religious liberty. . . . 
Shall I hold out hopes to my fellow-countryman that I 
will not meddle with his creed if he will not meddle 
with mine ? Shall I lead him to think that religion is a 
matter of private opinion, and tempt him to forget that 
he has no more right to his religious views than he 
has to my purse, or my house, or my life-blood ? No. 
Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds." 

The Shepherd of the Valley, a paper published under 
the auspices of Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia, a 
prelate who is feted, or, as a local paper says, 
"dined and wined " by all the leading Protestants of 



158 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Philadelphia, has pubHshed the following pastoral 
instruction of the Archbishop. We only wish it could 
be read in his presence and in the presence of those 
who, by patronising him in society, are helping to 
hasten the time when he will be able to persecute as 
he declares he is bound to do, and as he has sworn in 
the oath which he took when he was made bishop that 
he will do. Here are his own words : — 

" We maintain that the Church of Rome is intolerant, 
that is, she uses every means in her power to root out 
heresy ; but her intolerance is the result of her infalli- 
bility. She alone has the right to be intolerant, 
because she alone has the right. The Church tolerates 
heretics where she is obliged to do so, but she hates 
them with a deadly hatred, and uses all her power to 
annihilate them. If ever the Roman Catholics in this 
land should become a considerable majority, which in 
time will surely be the case . . . then will religious 
freedom in the Republic of the United States come to 
an end. Our enemies know how the Roman Church 
treated heretics in the Middle Ages, and how she 
treats them to-day whenever she has the power. We 
no more think of denying these historical facts than 
we do of blaming the holy God, and the princes of the 
Church, for what they have thought it good to do." 

The following are the words, in Latin and English, 
by which every Roman Catholic bishop pledges himself 
to persecute every Protestant : — 

^' I WILL, TO THE UTMOST OF MY POWER, PERSECUTE 
AND ATTACK HERETICS, SCHISMATICS, AND REBELS AGAINST 
THE SAME OUR LORD (tHE POPe) OR HIS AFORESAID 
SUCCESSORS." 



HOJ^P THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 159 

" Hsereticos, schismaticos, et rebelles eidem Domino 
nostro, vel Successoribus praedictis pro posse persequar, 
et impugnabo." 

What would the Roman Catholic Church say if the 
ministers of any Protestant denomination were to make 
such a vow at their ordination ? What a cry there 
would be of bigotry and oppression ! But because all 
this, and a great many other things, are not suspected 
by unsuspicious Protestants who, not doing these things 
themselves, never dream that they are done by Romanists, 
and because the same Romanists very wisely use the 
Latin tongue to conceal their deeds of evil, they can 
afford to lie about their teachings, and thereby deceive 
the world at large. Let it be remembered that it is a part 
of the teaching of the Roman Church that faith need not 
be kept with Protestants under any circumstance what- 
ever ; and let Protestants who know these things beware 
lest God shall call them to a terrible account, at the last 
day, for supporting such a system of lies and imposture. 

Again, be it remembered that Roman Catholics are 
bound, not by what they may say in society, or to con- 
verts who are too often, as I was myself, easily deceived, 
having no suspicion of even the possibility of such false- 
hood. The Roman priests and bishops are bound by 
the dogmatic teaching of their Church, and we have a 
right to judge them by that teaching, and by it only. 
A man has no right to refuse to be judged or bound 
by the laws of the Church to which he belongs, above 
all in the case of the Church of Rome. 

The subject is one of so much importance, that I 
give the following extracts from St. Thomas Aquinas, 
and be it remembered that he is no obsolete authority, • 
he is still the "angel of the schools," and the great 



i6o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

authority in all matters of theological teaching in the 
Roman Church. What he says, Rome says ; for Rome 
has put the seal of her strongest approbation on his 
teaching, and the present Pope has especially approved 
it. 

''Though heretics must not be tolerated because they 
deserved it, we must bear with them till, by a second 
admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of 
the Church. But those who, after a second admonition, 
remain obstinate in their errors, must not only be 
excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the 
secular power to be exterminated." ("St. Thomas 
Aquinas," p. 90.) 

At p. 91 he saysi: — ''Though heretics who repent 
must always be accepted to penance as often as they 
have fallen, they must not, in consequence of that, 
always be permitted to enjoy the benefits of this life. . . . 
When they fall again they are admitted to repent. . . . 
But the sentence of death must not be removed." 

Later on in the same article all dealings with heretics 
are positively forbidden. 

The Council of Lateran, held in 121 5, decreed as 
follows : — 

" We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy 
that exalts itself against the holy orthodox and Catholic 
faith, condemning all heretics, by whatever name they 
may be known ... for though their faces differ, they are 
tied together by their tails. Such as are condemned 
are to be delivered over to the existing secular powers 
to receive due punishment. If laymen, their goods must 
be confiscated ; if priests, they shall be degraded from 
their respective orders, and their property applied to the 



HOW THE POPE I FAS MADE INFALLIBLE. i6i 

use of the Church in which they officiated. Secular 
powers of all ranks and degrees are to be warned, 
induced, and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical 
censures to swear that they will exert themselves to the 
utmost in defence of the faith, and extirpate all heretics 
denounced by the -Church w^ho shall be found in their 
territories. And whenever any person shall assume 
government, whether it be spiritual or temporal, he 
shall be bound to abide by this decree. 

'' If an}^ temporal lord, after having been admonished 
and required by the Church, shall neglect to clear his 
territor}^ of heretical depravity, the Metropolitan and 
Bishop of the province shall unite in excommunicating 
him. Should he remain contumacious a whole 3^ear 
the fact shall be signified to the Supreme Pontiff, who 
shall declare his vassals released from their allegiance 
from that time, and will bestow his territory on Catholics, 
to be occupied by them on the condition of exterminat- 
ing the heretics, and preserving the said territory in the 
faith. 

"Catholics who shall assume the cross for the exter- 
mination of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgences, 
and be protected by the same privileges, as are granted 
to those who go to the help of the Holy Land." 

And with all these stern realities, and the fact before 
the eyes of the whole world, that the present Pope has 
endorsed the conduct of his predecessor in burning 
heretics, we yet find the following in the New York 
World:— 

"When the Pope of Rome celebrated his jubilee 
about a year ago there were sent to him no congratula- 
tions, from any source, more cordial than many which 

11 



1 62 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



had a Protestant origin. This fact did not indicate any 
tendency of Protestantism towards Romanism (?) ; but 
it showed that the personal character of the sovereign 
Pontiff commanded respect, even affection, from many 
Christians who entirely decline to sanction his ecclesias- 
tical claims. Understood in that sense, a hearty con- 
currence may be given to what Cardinal Ryan said 
at the recent anniversary dinner of the Catholic Club 
in Philadelphia, ' Many Protestants who have met 
the Pope, while not religiously Catholic, are personally 
Papists.' " 

If these men who are not '^religiously Catholic," 
but are '' personally Papists," are not prepared to be 
altogether personally, relatively, and absolutely Papists, 
they will meet with the same fate as Bruno, as soon as 
Rome can inflict it, and all their previous concessions 
and liberality will not save them. 

But Rome distinguishes *' infallibly " in the matter 
of secret societies. Why indeed should she not do so, 
when she claims that all power has been given to her, 
in heaven and in earth ? The world has rung with the 
story of the shameful murder of Dr. Cronin. What has 
Rome to say about this matter ? It would be wise if 
those who are so sure that Rome is the friend of law 
and order would read the signs of the times, and see 
for themselves the conditions under which she assists 
to keep or break the public peace. 

The history of the way in which the Knights of 
Labour have been and are controlled by the Church 
of Rome is well worthy of the consideration of those 
who would read the signs of the times. This organisa- 
tion has no religious or political standing or aims. It 
is simply a body of men united for the purpose of mutual 



JlOJr THE rOPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 163 



advantage, and for the protection of their own com- 
mercial interests. Scarcely had this organisation been 
formed when the ''Church" interfered. The head of 
the organisation, Mr. Powderly, is a more or less devout 
Roman Catholic ; and this fact of course gave the Church 
the much-desired thin end of the wedge. But it is per- 
fectly amazing, and it is an undeniable evidence of the 
power of the Roman Church in America, that a body of 
men who are a non-religious organisation should be 
obliged to place themselves slavishly at the feet of the 
Pope. If anything could open tne eyes of the Pro- 
testant people of America to the danger to the Republic, 
from the aggressions of Rome, this most certainly should 
do so. 

Although Mr. Powderly had the talent to organise, 
and even to control his organisation, he was a child in 
the hands of the '' Church." To her mandates he was 
required to bow down abjectly, and he did bow down. 
No doubt he was made aware of the inevitable conse- 
quences of doing otherwise. Now it should be again 
observed that the Knights of Labour are not a Roman 
Catholic organisation ; at least they were not, and were 
never intended to be such in their inception. A large 
minority, if not a fair majority, are Protestants. What 
matter? They also must bow to Rome, and they 
have done so. The inner secret of the power of Rome 
over this organisation will probably never be known, 
but quite enough has been made public. Possibly Mr. 
Powderly was threatened with the loss of his power 
in the organisation if he did not obey orders. Rome 
has more ways of enforcing her commands than men 
suppose, who do not know her inner workings. She 
can make herself felt from the throne to the hovel, and 
she does make herself felt. Not for the welfare of 



164 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

the people — for what people have ever prospered under 
her rule ? — but for the supposed advancement of the 
Church. Not for the advancement of the kingdom of 
Christ, for He has distinctly condemned her in advance, 
when He said, '' My kingdom is not of this world;" and 
her whole desire is to rule the kingdoms of the world. 

Whatever may have been the motive or cause of 
Mr. Powderly's degrading submission, there is no doubt 
about the fact. It is possible to understand his action in 
the matter, but how can we account for the submission 
of a large body of men who are not Roman Catholics ? 
The heads of the Church of Rome in America, in view 
of this, and many such evidences of their power, may 
well boast in Rome that they have the people of 
America under their feet. Imagine for one moment a 
body of English working men submitting the rules of 
their organisation to the Pope for his approval, and 
waiting in abject submission till he was pleased to set 
the seal of his approval on them. It was said at the 
time, and I believe with truth, that if Powderly had 
held out and refused to submit the rules of the society, 
Rome would have succumbed. She always knows just 
how far she can go, and she very seldom risks going 
farther. She has on her side American men of capital 
who work for her, and with her, in the fond delusion 
that she will protect the millionaire, her kingdom and 
interests being like his, of the world. But the 
millionaire, if he took time to read history, w^ould soon 
learn that the expected protection will be withdrawn 
when the Church of Rome becomes strong enough to 
crush him, as well as the working man. Millionairec 
are generally wdUing to give a tithe of their wealth to 
protect the rest ; and no doubt the rich employers of 
America are only too well pleased to have the working 



HO IV THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 165 

men who belong to the Knights of Labour under the 
control of Rome. 

As the matter is of such importance, we give the 
facts from a Roman Catholic paper, the New York 
Freeman^ s Journal, which now dispenses the dynamite 
of the Church under the editorship of Pat Ford, whose 
name has become notorious as the advocate of material 
dynamite. 

The following is the letter of the Cardinal Prefect 
of the sacred congregation to Cardinal Gibbons, em- 
bodying its decree in regard to the American Knights 
of Labour : — 

" Rome. August 2()th, 1888. 

"Most Eminent and Most Rev. Lord, — I have to 
inform your Eminence that the fresh documents relative 
to the society of the Knights of Labour, which have 
been laid before the Sacred Congregation, were ex- 
amined at its meeting held on Thursday, August 1 6th, 
of the current year. 

" Having carefully studied these documents, the 
Sacred Congregation orders that this reply be made : — 
That, judging by all that has hitherto been proposed 
to it, the Knights of Labour may for the present be 
tolerated. The Sacred Congregation only requires that 
the necessary corrections be made in the statutes of the 
organisation, in order to explain what might otherwise 
appear to be obscure, or be interpreted in a wrong 
sense. The modifications should especially be made in 
thos6 passages of the preamble of the rules which refer 
to local association ; the words which in these passages 
savour of socialism and communism must be corrected 
in such a manner as to make them express simply the 
right given by God to man, or rather to mankind, to 



i66 msiDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

acquire by legitimate means, respecting always the 
rights of property enjoyed by every one. 

^^I am happy to be able to inform your Eminence 
that the Sacred Congregation has praised highly the 
resolve of the Bishops of the United States to take 
heed, in concert with itself, lest there creep into the 
society of the Knights of Labour, and other similar 
organisations, anything contrary to justice and honesty, 
or not in conformity with the instructions given as to 
the Masonic sect. 

'' In confirming and supporting you in this excellent 
project, in the name of the Sacred Congregation I pray 
you to accept the assurance of our respectful and 
devoted sentiments. 

'* Your Eminence's very humble servant, 

" John Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect. 

''To His Eminence Cardinal James Gibbons, Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore r 

The New York Sun published the condemnation, by 
the Tribunal of the Roman Inquisition, of the doctrine 
proposed by Mr. Henry George, abolishing private 
property in land, and giving the further direction that, 
if the Society of the Knights of Labour would be toler- 
ated by the Roman Catholic Church, they must correct 
any expression of agreement with the views of Mr. 
George. The following letter from Cardinal Gibbons 
to Archbishop Elder of Cincinnati was the result : — 

" Cardinal's Residence, 
" 408, N. Charles St., Baltwwre, September 2^th. 

" Your Grace, — On receipt of the letter of which the 
enclosed is a copy, I wrote to Mr. Powderly requesting 
him to come and see me. He came on the 24th inst. 



HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 167 

in compliance with my invitation, and cheerfully 
promised to make the emendations required by the 
Holy Office, and expressed his readiness to comply at 
all times with the wishes of the ecclesiastical authorities, 
Very faithfully your friend in Christ. 

*'J. Card. Gibbons. 

^' Most Rev. Dr. Elder, Abp., Cincinnatiy 

But this is not all. Would it be believed that a set 
of Roman Cardinals, not one of whom, as I can testify 
from my own personal knowledge, can read one word 
of English, could have the impertinence to tell the 
Enghsh-speaking and English-thinking men of the 
great American Republic that their organisation ^' may 
be tolerated for the present " ? Nothing can be done 
until certain words, of which these Cardinals do not 
understand one single sentence in the language in 
which they are written, are altered to suit their pleasure. 
And this in the nineteenth century ! If such things 
can be done now, no statement of the claims of the 
Church, or of the abject submission of the people to it 
in the Middle Ages, should surprise us. Indeed there 
was a good deal more resistance to Rome then than 
now. Talk of the exaction and tyrannies of Imperial 
Rome towards her colonies ; they were as nothing 
compared to the demands and exactions of modern 
Papal Rome. The Inquisition is practically established 
now in America, as Cardinal Gibbons plainly states, for 
the '^ Holy Office," to which he refers in the above 
letter, is one of the names of the Inquisition. For 
the present it " tolerates ; " it will burn whenever it 
will be safe to burn. It should be observed that in 
all this business of regulating American affairs there is 
not one word of reference to the opinions of the people 



If 8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

of America. As for the Government, it is simply, 
ignored. It is a matter of no account. 

But if Rome exercises her power over the govern- 
ment of America, and dictates to the American working 
man just how far he may go in claiming his rights, and 
just what words he may use in his charters of incorpo- 
ration, there are Societies with which Rome does not 
interfere, partly because she dare not, partly because 
she knows that the time may come when she can make 
use of these societies for her own advancement. 

The Clan-na-Gael goes on her murderous way with 
the full approval and blessing of the 'Mioly" Roman 
Catholic Church. Certainly it is a very blessed thing 
for this world to be a '' faithful child " of holy Church. 
If you have private or public grudges, and want to 
avenge them, you need not fear, if you submit to the 
Church in essentials, that you will find any interference 
with your plans in such trivial matters. I am serious ; 
the subject is far too serious for jest. I am stating facts ; 
and the fact that these facts are startling, should not 
- blind us to them or to their consequences. I do not 
ask any one to take my word for these assertions. The 
case is before the public. When has the Church of Rome 
said one word, in America, to censure the Clan-na-Gael, 
or any other Irish secret assassination society? If 
anything has been said it has been in so low a whisper 
that no one has caught the sound. 

The truth is, that Rome dare not interfere with the 
secret societies of the Irish people. It is only Pro- 
testant societies which she rules and regulates. The 
determined attitude which the Irish have taken against 
any interference of Rome in their political affairs has 
had its due effect. Rome cannot do without Ireland ; 
above all, it cannot do without the Irish people in 



BO IV THE POPE IVAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 169 

America, and Rome acts accordingly. The facts are 
before the pubHc. I do no more than to draw pubHc 
attention to what already exists. 

A short time since, Father Murphy of Kilmeen, 

Ireland, was sentenced to four months imprisonment 

for violating the law, in connection with the eviction 

of one of his parishioners. He appealed against the 

sentence, and after a long and careful hearing the case 

was fully proved against him. The magistrate, anxious 

not to offend the " priest " (an easy offence to commit, 

the consequences of which are well known to all those 

who administer justice in Ireland), offered to remit the 

penalty if the priest would apologise, and promise to 

refrain from such conduct in the future. But the priest 

would do nothing of the kind. He knew too well the 

value of an imprisonment, and the capital it would make 

for him when his sentence was ended. But what of 

the Pope ? Never a word is said in approval, no matter 

how mild, of all this ; it is only the Protestant institu- 

tons of America which come under the personal control 

of Rome, and whose members must submit to have 

even the very wording of their rules criticised and 

altered as the Pope pleases. 

The very idea of denouncing in any way the Clan-na- 
Gael murders has been laughed to scorn by Archbishop 
Corrigan's organ, the New York Freeman's Journal. 
I give the very words of the paper : — 

" For real cheek and presumption, evidently begotten 
of ignorance, we commend the editorial of the New 
York Press, in which the Catholic Church is asked to 
thunder from its pulpits against its miscreants guilty of 
the deed." 

Of course it would not do to approve too openly of the 
assassination of Dr. Cronin, who seems to have been the 



lyo INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

only practical Catholic of the lot, and who from that point 
of view should have had some claim to the sympathy, 
if not the protection of his Church. But the Clan-na- 
Gael are too powerful a body to be offended, and too 
many of its members are implicated in this disgraceful 
affair, to admit of the condemnation of the society as a 
whole. But let it be supposed for a moment that the 
Knights of Labour had assassinated a member of that 
body, and above all if that member had been a Romanist, 
what torrents of righteous indignation would have been 
poured forth on the leaders, and on every member of 
the organisation. Rome is fine at virtuous indignation 
when the shortcomings of other people are concerned, 
or when there is political capital to be made out of the 
condemnation of her own children. 

Rome is wiser in her generation than the children of 
light. Why should not the Papal Church '' thunder 
from her pulpits " against the evildoers who are her 
children ? But see how gently these men are spoken 
of; they are only ^' miscreants." Perhaps these very 
/* miscreants " have sat at the feet of the editor of this 
paper, and learned from him the doctrine of spreading 
the lurid light of assassination. " Spread the light." 
Send dynamite to blow up the '' English enemy." Kill ; 
destroy. Let innocent men be murdered with the so- 
called guilty ; no matter. The innocent must suffer 
sometimes, even in legalised war. This was the teach- 
ing of the '' Spread the Light " paper, still, we believe, 
owned by the editor and proprietor of the New York 
Freeman^ s Journal, the leading Roman Catholic paper 
in that city. No wonder the editor treats the Chicago 
murderers as men and brothers ; they are merely ^^ mis- 
creants," a mild word, v/hich may be used in jest even 
to describe some boyish freak. Why should the Catho- 



HOJ^l^ THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 171 

lie Church be asked to denounce these devoted sons of 
Ireland and of Rome ? One Cronin more or less ; what 
matter, when the thousands who are left have to be 
considered, and the political influence which they wield ? 
Truly of such are the kingdom of earth ; what matter 
about the kingdom of heaven ? Here is the opinion of 
Archbishop Corrigan, for no paper under his authority 
would dare make any statement contrary to his 
will. 

We give another paragraph from this official organ 
of the Roman Church, and let there be no mistake on 
these subjects. If the Pope with one word could stop 
the circulation of the Bible in France, he could as easily 
have stopped the circulation of the dynamite Irish 
World in New York. It is easy to prevent the circu- 
lation of the Bible, but to say a word to the editor of a 
powerful paper, like the New York Freeman's Journal^ 
is quite another matter. 

"The Chicago Clan-na-Gael revelations is a bad 
business for all concerned, as well as for the cause in 
whose name the actors are supposed to have worked ; 
but there may be some good in the lesson taught by it, 
that will compensate for the chagrin which all true 
friends of Ireland must feel over the sad affair." 

All true friends of Ireland must feel *^ chagrined," 
and it is a *' sad affair ; " and this is all the holy Catholic 
Church, as represented by Archbishop Corrigan, has to 
say of a foul and brutal murder. It is not unfair to 
suggest that the *' chagrin " (a curious word to use in 
describing the utter abhorrence which every true 
Christian should have for such deeds) may be, not 
because the murder was committed, but because it 
was found out ; and it is worthy of note that the 
writer thinks that " the good in the lesson " will com- 



172 INSIDE THE CHURCH OB ROME. 

pensate for the sad little affair of the murder. What 
words are these for Christian men to use unreproved, 
and in the name of the Roman Church, which claims 
such exceptional holiness ! 

But there are many reasons for the quiet condone- 
ment of any evil which the Clan-na-Gael may do. The 
Clan-na-Gael is rich, and Rome has a supreme respect 
for wealth. She craves money as no other Christian 
community ever craved it, and she works for it as no 
other Christian community ever has worked for it. 
She is far too wise to risk the loss of money, or of the 
friendship and support of those who have it, and who 
may find it to their interest to have the shield of her 
protection thrown over their evil deeds. Here is a state- 
ment worth the careful attention of those who may wish 
to know just how the Roman Catholic Church stands 
in this matter : — 

'^ F. W. Dunne, a leading Chicago Irishman, who was 
expelled from Camp No. i6, Clan-na-gael, for charging 
Alexander Sullivan in 1882 with using ,$^85,000 of the 
funds of the organisation in paying his debts, is out 
with a statement. He says : — 

'* ' The present strength of the organisation is 
22,000, and it has been in existence for twenty-two 
years. To estimate the numerical strength of the 
organisation one-half its present strength will be 
moderate. 

Yearly dues, 11,000 men at $6, $66,000; for twenty- 
two years . $1,542,000 

Initiation fees, ii,ooo men at $2 . . . . 22,000 

New members, to fill vacancies, 21,000 per annum, 

at $2 each 42,000 

Special calls, twenty-two years, say five calls, aver- 
aging $5 per head, or 55,000 for each call . . 275,000 



HO I J' THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 173 

Brought forward $1,881,000 
Annual picnics, say $40,000 per annum, or $100 for 

400 camps, for twenty-two years . . . 880,000 

Skirmishing fund, obtained by Ford and Rossa . 103,000 



Total 2,864,000 



Deduct hall rent, say 400 camps at $iOO per year, 

for twenty-two years ...... 880,000 



Total $1,984,000 

" ' You will see/ continued Mr. Dunne, ^ what a haul 
the Triangle has had. I content myself with making 
this statement. I challenge Alexander Sullivan, or 
Father Dorney, to disapprove anything I say. The 
courts are open to the former if I libel him. As a 
Catholic, I will appear before the Archbishop to prove 
everything I say against Maurice J. Dorney as a 
priest.' 

'^ Father Dorney, the associate of Sullivan and Egan, 
is being denounced on all sides. It will be remembered 
that he was appointed to examine Sullivan's accounts, 
and he pronounced them all straight, after the money 
had disappeared. And now the Clan-na-Gael demands 
his ' removal ' (not as Cronin was removed, however) 
by the Archbishop. A telegram from Chicago says : 
' Clan-na-Gael, Camp No 52, United Brotherhood, held 
a special meeting on Saturday night, at Forty-Second 
and Halsted Streets. It was an important meeting in 
many respects. The object was to discuss the part 
taken by the Rev. Father Dorney in the Cronin matter, 
and also his denial of the fact that he is a Clan-na-Gael, 
and that he was, if he is not now, a member of Camp 16. 
When these charges were first made against Alexander 
Sullivan by Dr. Cronin, Camp No. 17, which then met 
at Fourty-Fourth and Halsted Streets in the Town of 



174 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Lake, demanded an investigation. Dorney acquitted 
Sullivan of all sharp practice.' " 

If a Protestant clergyman of any denomination had 
even been named in such a connection, what an outcry 
there would have been in every Roman Catholic paper 
all over the world. 

The Pope has certainly denounced assassinations 
and outrages now and then in Ireland, under pressure 
from the English Government. But he changed the 
subject, with a promptness which would be amusing 
if the matter was not so serious, when he found that 
the Irish people would cut off the supplies if they were 
interfered with. All the world knows that it has taken 
all Archbishop Walsh's tact and popularity to keep the 
peace between the *' faithful " Irish and the Pope. 
Indeed nothing could well be more undignified than the 
Papal proceedings in this matter. But to interfere with 
the free right of the Irish American, to assassinate 
any one who is pleased to denounce fraud, is quite 
another affair. And yet there are Protestants, and 
Protestant capitalists, who think that the Church of 
Rome will protect them from the '' mob " if they extend 
their protection to the Pope's representatives in America. 
When the Pope has not been able or has not been 
willing, to protect Irish men of honour like Dr. Cronin 
of his own communion, and Irish landlords, Protestant 
or Romanist, from assassination, the American millionaire 
might know that he will find himself deserted when he 
most needs help. 

It is interesting and instructive to observe who the 
men are whom Rome delights to honour. The New 
York World, a paper which cannot be charged with 
any anti-Romanist sympathies, has the following 



HOW THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 175 



paragraph. It might have added one more to the " two 
great" and good men, all devoted Roman Catholics, of 
whom America is so justly (?) proud, and who are so 
much honoured by the Roman Church. Sullivan, the 
iceman, who is accused of the Cronin murder, has been 
no doubt accidentally omitted. 

'' The United States of America has two great 
Sullivans. One knocked a man down, and shot him 
dead as he was rising. An American judge held that, 
having been knocked down, the man would naturally be 
angry, and might desire to injure Sullivan ; therefore 
the shooting was done in self-defence. This Sullivan 
also sent dynamiters to England to blow up and mangle 
innocent women and children. The other Sullivan is 
a brute who thrashed his wife, and knocked a waiter- 
girl down. He is to meet a good man in a few days. 
It is to be hoped that nothing w^ill occur to interrupt 
the proceedings. The United States is justly proud of 
its two Sullivans." 

The same paper adds significantly : — 

" Labouchere says Sullivan had nothing to do with 
the Cronin murder. Davitt says the same thing, and 
Pat Ford says ditto. How do they know ? If they 
are positive that Sullivan had nothing to do with it, it 
may not be too much to say that they must know who 
had." 

Pat Ford, it will be remembered, is the — we had 
almost said infallible — successor of the late Dr. 
Brownson, and of Mr. Egan (not the dynamiter, but 
a namesake), promoted to Chili regions, who is now 
teaching the young idea how to — well, suppose we say 
shoot, in one of the many Roman Catholic " Uni- 



176 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

versities " in this happy land. But what matter? 
Are they not all faithful sons of the '' Church " ? And if 
they are not prepared to live for it, they will be ready, 
when called on, to fight for it, which is of far more 
consequence. Decent men like Cronin could only 
live for their faith, and are not worth counting or 
encouraging. 

After all, it is far better, in the Church of Rome, to 
be a murderer than a heretic. There is no chance for 
the heretic, but for the murderer there is every hope, 
especially if he belongs to any powerful body of men 
who cannot be interfered with without dangerous con- 
sequences. Bishop Foley thus disposes of heretics : — 

On the 31 St of December, 1869, Right Rev. Bishop 
Foley of Chicago swore before the civil court at 
Kankakee, that the following sentence was an exact 
translation of the doctrine of the Church of Rome, as 
taught to-day in all the Roman Catholic seminaries, 
colleges, and universities, through the '' Summa Theolo- 
gica " of Thomas Aquinas (vol. iv., p. 90): — ''Though 
heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, 
we must bear with them, till by a second admonition 
they may be brought back to the faith of the Church. 
But those who, after a second admonition, remain 
obstinate to their errors, must not only be excommuni- 
cated, but they must be delivered to the secular power 
to be exterminated." 

A priest in New York diocese was threatened with 
all sorts of ecclesiastical pains and penalties, if he 
assisted me in any way in my efforts to help emigrant 
girls, though the work had been specially approved by 
the Pope. But to be a Sullivan, and a slogger, is quite 
another affair. Priests are quite at liberty to follow 



HOW THE POPE IVJS MADE INFALLIBLE. t77 

their inclinations, and to show all honour to the '' big 
fellow." We are informed in the New York Worla 
that :— 

" Father Bonlow, the pastor of the little Roman 
Catholic Church in Belfast, is about the only regular 
visitor. He doesn't bother the boys talking about 
theological matters, and Muldoon gives him SiOO a 
year for the Church, and they call it square. The 
priest likes to go over in the lounging room Muldoon 

has fitted up in the stable, where John L pounds 

the bags, wrestles, has his baths and is rubbed down. 
Slogging, wrestling, and episodes of the ring generally 
are the favourite topics of conversation, and Father 
Bonlow can give points to many sportsmen on these 
subjects." 

It is indeed difficult to know what the ^' Church " 
will not ''square " if the money to square with is only 
forthcoming. Happy Sullivan to fight under such 
blessed auspices ! But we are also told that his 
pugilistic opponent, Kilrain, was by no means behind 
in the race ^or priestly favour. He, too, had the 
''special blessing" of the Holy Catholic Church. And 
Sullivan was met and blessed by priests on his way 
to the brutal exhibition, where he did such honour to 
his faith and country, as a prize fighter. 

In a report from Ottawa, published in the New York 
Worldy the Deputy Minister of Justice says : — 

^' The American people are now beginning to realize 
the dangerous element they have among them in the 
Clan-na-Gael society, the influence of which society 
defeated the Extradition Bill in the United States 
Senate. The Dominion Government has evidence that 

12 



178 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

this society a year or so ago had planned the destruction 
of the Pariiament buildings here and the assassination 
of Lord Lansdowne, then Governor-General. We 
discovered the plot, and frustrated their murderous 
designs ; and it is hardly to' be wondered that any 
member of the society against whom there are strong 
evidences of complicity in murder should not expect 
much leniency from the executive at Ottawa." 

It is strange if the Government at Ottawa is aware 
of the guilt of the Clan-na-Gael, and knows what a 
menace it is to society, that the Roman Church should 
have such warm supporters in that country. 

Here is the history of another good Catholic, with 
whose career the Church seems quite satisfied. Is it 
any wonder that Roman Catholic young men with any 
self-respect are beginning to be ashamed of their 
Church, as a writer in the (Roman Catholic) Richmond 
Visitor declares ? The editor of that paper says : — 

''The want of due respect for the clergy is very 
noticeable among our young people. Among the boys 
especially is this lack of courtesy most marked. 
Young men fail or refuse to recognise their own pastor 
on the street. Young boys will hide and seek to avoid 
meeting with their parish priest. This is not right. 
It could not fail to discourage the most sanguine priest 
were such a thing possible. It must certainly render 
his work less pleasant, to feel that those in whom he is 
most interested, endeavour to shun him on the streets. 
It is all foolishness to think that the priest does not 
know them. He has nothing else to think of but those 
entrusted to his care. Young people, respect your 
clergy ; by so doing you will respect yourselves." 

The bishop of the diocese where there is such a 



no IV THE POPE WAS MADE INFALLIBLE. 179 



lamentable state of things as that described above is 
the right Rev. Dr. Keane, the present Rector of the 
new • Roman CathoHc university in Washington. It 
will be interesting to see if he will be able to secure all 
the respect he desires, from the young men whom he 
expects to graduate in his university. If he could not 
obtain for himself and his priests even the common 
courtesies of life in his own diocese, and when they 
were under his own pastoral control, and taught in his 
own schools, it is scarcely to be expected that he will 
fare better with others. But what a revelation this is 
of the inner life of the Roman Church. 

The Roman Church professes to rule for God ; the 
result of her rule shows that she rules for the devil. 
Everywhere that she has obtained power there is the 
same record of violence and crime. Look at Ireland. 
Look at New York and Chicago. In these places Rome 
has more power than in any other country in the world ; 
and what is the result ? As regards Ireland, I will 
speak later and give facts which cannot be disputed. 
As regards New York, the records of the police courts 
ought to make every honest Romanist blush for shame. 
Gangs of ruffians with Irish names, which tell their 
nationality, and with medals or scapulars which tell 
their creed, make certain parts of New York hideous 
with crime. And what does the Church of Rome do 
for their improvement ? An Irish judge has stated 
lately that he sentences from ten to fifteen thousand 
criminals every year in New York, and there are few 
indeed of these who are not members of the ''holy' 
Catholic Church. God help them! I do not here say 
one word of reproach to the Irish for Irish crime ; but 
I do say, in the words of the late Dr. Moriarty, that 
eternity will not be long enough, nor hell hot enough, 



i8o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

to punish those who have deliberately deceived these 
unhappy people. 

I might fill the present work and volumes more if I 
gave anything like a history of Irish crime in New York, 
simply taking the facts from the daily papers. I have 
a personal knowledge of the workings of some of the 
Roman Catholic institutions in New York. Protestants 
who do not inquire into details, and who do not know 
facts, are lost in amazement at the number of charitable 
institutions which are supported (as the}^ think) by the 
Roman Catholic Church. As a matter of fact, they are 
supported to a great extent by Protestants, who are 
taxed — and obliged to pay the tax, too — for the support 
of these institutions; whose existence would not be 
necessary if the poor Roman Catholics were taught to 
believe in the Gospel, instead of the Papal Church. 
Sometimes these men commit murder too -openly to be 
shielded by the Church, or by the saloon keepers, who 
are in such high favour with the Romish bishops. 

The Roman Catholic Church obtained her great foot- 
hold in the United States after the civil war. However 
priests may quarrel with each other, and even with 
their bishops, they always unite in the most extravagant 
laudations of their Church. During the war the sisters 
did good service w4th other ladies in nursing the sick. 
The Roman Church, wise as the serpent, has kept before 
the public, and worked it for all it was worth. The 
Americans are a generous people, and they responded 
to the appeals which were made after the war, on behalf 
of the sisters, promptly and largely. The thin edge of 
the wedge was got in well, and Rome knows how to 
keep it there. It was made to appear a crime of the 
first magnitude to refuse a ^'sister" anything, and the 
charm has worked till to-day. It has become now a 



HO IV THE POPE JVAS MADE INFALLIBLE. i8i 

political necessity. At Washington no politician, no 
matter who is President of the United States, dares 
to refuse the tax which the sisters go round to collect 
every month, or oftener. Picture to 3^ourself sisters 
being allowed to visit the British Museum, Whitehall, 
the Houses of Parliament, and all the public and 
private offices of London every month, and demand 
Dioncy, and then 3''ou can understand the state of 
affairs in '' free America." In fact, the country is very 
far from being free in many respects, and it is a mere 
question of time when it will be bound hand and foot 
by Rome. 

But why are all these public appeals necessary ? 
The sisters who educate are well provided for. They 
charge very large fees for educating the rich, and they 
are splendidly paid for educating the poor. The 
amount of public money which is bestowed on the 
Roman Catholic convents in America would hardly be 
credited ; and what is the result ? Far from decreasing 
crime it increases. Here is a case. Lizzie Ahearn 
comes from Ireland, and is living out in New York. 
She has a child ; she gets ill, and cannot provide for it. 
It is taken from her to the New York Roman Catholic 
Foundling Asylum, which is a favourite institution with 
the New York Archbishop, who is loud in his praise 
of the foundress, Sister Irene. I tried to establish 
institutions to prevent crime, but that was a crime, and 
I was pursued by all sorts of ecclesiastical opposition. 
But to establish a place where crime can be rewarded, 
and where it can be practically encouraged, is a great 
virtue ; and the sister who undertook to care for the 
illegitimate children of New York Roman Catholics, has 
a high place in the estimation of Archbishop Corrigan 
and his clergy, and no doubt they do well to be grateful. 



1 82 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

To me it seemed that to have looked after this friend-^ 
less emigrant girl, and to have protected her on her 
arrival in this country, would have been a far more 
meritorious work than to have provided for her when 
she fell. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE TEACHING 
OF THE CHURCH. 

" Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that 
turn from the truth." — Titus i. 14. 

THE vital difference between the Roman Catholic 
religion and the Protestant is simply this. The 
Protestant relies on the Scripture as the first, and the 
last, court of appeal in deciding controversy. The 
Romanist, on the contrary, looks to the Church as the 
only court of appeal. The Romanist justifies his exclu- 
sive appeal to the Church on the ground that the 
Church has been appointed by Divine commission to 
teach all nations, and therefore if there is a difference 
between the Church and the Bible, the Church must 
decide, as it is above the Bible. And the Romanists 
enforce their claim on the ground that Protestants 
have so many different opinions, all taken from the 
Bible, that obviously the Bible cannot be intended 
to teach us what to believe, as its meaning may be so 
variously interpreted. 

This argument, like many similar ones, looks very 
plausible until it is thoroughly siff:ed. In the first 
place, Protestants are all agreed on the plan of salva- 
tion, which rests on Christ alone. Roman Catholics have 
many plans of salvation, which rest on many sources 
and saviours. It is very much to be regretted that 



1 84 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



Protestants in their controversies with Romanists do 
not know what a large latitude is given to the Church 
in the matter of truth. Priests who are trained to 
evasion make statements — I had almost said uncon- 
sciously — without due regard for truth. The Roman 
Catholic laity know very little about their own religion, 
and they know worse than nothing about the Protestant 
religion; hence arises one great difficulty in arguing 
with a Romanist. Its chief value is to make him 
think, which is certainly a great gain. 

A Romanist who has been taught to believe that a 
Protestant has no real religion is amazed when he comes 
into contact with Protestants, and finds that they are 
Christians, and that far from not believing in God, they 
only desire that their Roman Catholic brethren should 
believe in Him aright. Once a Romanist is convinced 
that he has been deceived, the way is opened for his 
further enlightenment; but it is difficult indeed to make 
him doubt the sincerity or the honesty of his teachers, 
a point which should never be forgotten. 

Protestants, then, should remember that the Roman 
Catholic laity, when discussing religion with them, are 
honest as far as they know ; but they should remember 
also that Roman Catholics are deceived themselves on 
the most important points. Take, for example, the per- 
mission to read the Bible. The Romanists, in controversy 
with a. Protestant friend, will declare most positively 
that the Church does not forbid the unrestrained 
reading of the Bible, and the Protestant who is 
sincere himself, will not suspect that the Romanist is 
himself ignorant of the true teaching of his Church. Yet 
such is the case. There has been an evidence of this 
quite recently on an important subject. 

A French Roman Catholic gentleman, very famous 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH 185 

as the author of a work on Lourdes, where an apparition 
of the Blessed Virgin was said to have taken place 
some years since, published a French translation of the 
Bible. It was certainly a bold step to commence such 
a work, but his position seemed almost unassailable. 
He obtained the highest approval from the Pope in 
writing, as well as from his own ecclesiastical superiors. 
The book was selling by hundreds of thousands, when 
all at once the crash came without previous warning. 
The book was forbidden by the same infallible 
authority which had so lately commended and ap- 
proved it. Certainly it is a great thing to be a Pope, 
for a Pope, and a Pope alone, has the privilege of having 
half-a-dozen infallible minds, all equally warranted to 
be the truest, and each is looked upon, by his deluded 
followers, as inspired by the Holy Ghost. If the 
consequences of this to millions of the human race 
were not so infinitely sad it would be very amusing. 
As it is, it is too near tears for laughter. How any one 
with common sense, which is even approaching sound 
and sane, can fail to see the folly of all this, can only be 
explained on the Scripture statement that God sends 
some persons a strong delusion, so that they will 
believe a lie. It is noteworthy, too, that those who so 
easily accept the lies of Rome are too often of the very 
class on whom this judgment of believing a lie is 
predicted. They are those who have '* pleasure in un- 
righteousness," men who bow down to Rome because 
she fosters their pride by promising them wealth, 
political distinction, and social advancement. 

It is, as we have said, quite necessary for the Pope 
to be infallible, and it is extremely convenient. No 
matter what he teaches it is right ; it is, so he vainly 
thinks, the voice of God which speaks. At one moment 



i86 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

this voice may sanction incest, and at the next moment 
reprove it. One day he may permit the circulation of 
the Bible, and at the next he may forbid its circulation. 
What an easy time a Pope has ! So infallible are his 
utterances, that no matter how often he may change 
his opinions, no one dare say that he is mistaken. 
And let it be remembered that this is no fancy picture, 
or exaggerated statement of mine. 

What a contrast between the teaching of the Apostles 
and the teaching of Rome. The modern successor of 
the Apostles gives his most powerful support to the 
circulation of a book of miracles written in honour of 
the Blessed Virgin. The people may read this, but the 
book which contains the history of the miracles and 
the Gospel of Christ is forbidden. Ought not this fact, 
which is too public for denial, to convince the world of 
the unchristian character of the teaching of the Church 
of Rome ? But it is necessary that Protestants at least 
should be deceived as to the real teaching of Rome. 
This is not a difficult matter. They meet a Cardinal 
in society ; to them he is all courtesy and affability. He 
seems such a " nice fellow," no nonsense about him. 
They do not doubt his sincerity. Why should he say 
one thing to them, and say another in private ? Why, 
indeed, except that the Church to which he belongs 
finds it convenient to deceive you, and even prevent 
you from having the least suspicion that you are 
being deceived ? 

There has been a considerable stir made about 
this sudden and very decided suppression of the Bible 
in France. People say, ''Here is another evidence 
that the Church of Rome will not allow the Bible to 
be read," so it is necessary to prepare a little nice 
ecclesiastical dust to throw in the eyes of the public ; 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 187 

and who is better fitted to do this than the courtly 
mannered, if humbly born, Cardinal of Baltimore ? He 
will be believed, and listened to, if others are not. But 
how little his hearers know that when the Cardinal goes 
into the pulpit in his cathedral, and tells every one to 
read the Bible, he leaves the ink scarcely dry on the 
paper whereon he has written for publication these words : 
" God never intended the Bible to be" the Christian 
rule of faith, independently of the living authority of the 
Church " (Cardinal Gibbons' " Faith of our Fathers "). 

In this work, which has been written not only for 
Roman Catholics but for Protestants, there is one 
entire chapter devoted to the uselessness of the Bible. 
In fact, according to this veracious Cardinal, the Bible 
was only written to be a snare to us, and the less we 
have to do with it the better. Certainly it is a dangerous 
book when it is used to oppose Rome, for it is very 
plainly against her claims. It would seem that instead 
of the Holy Scriptures having been written to make us 
wise unto salvation (2 Tim. iii. 4), they are likely to 
become a trap to ensnare our souls. The Cardinal's 
contention in his book is briefly this. The Jews did 
not consult their Scriptures in order to make them wise 
unto salvation ; they referred, not to the Scriptures, 
but to the high-priests for decisions. In proof of this 
statement the Cardinal quotes Deut. xvii. 8, a passage 
which clearly refers to ordinary events, or rather to the 
extraordinary events of life, in which case the Jews 
were told to apply for advice to the priests. The Jews, 
he said, did not want the Scriptures, and why should 
Christians want them ? 

It does seem as if there must be a strong motive 
in this constant depreciation of Scripture. It does not 
seem to ntatter that St. Paul commended Timothy for 



INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



studying the Holy Scriptures from the time he was a 
child The Cardinal asserts that '' Jesus himself never 
wrote a word of Scripture." To reply to this blas- 
phemous insinuation would seem almost unnecessary. 
It is quite true that Jesus did not write any part of the 
Bible, but we know that the Bible contains His very 
words ; and it is almost too horrible to find a man who 
professes the Christian religion quibbling over such 
statements. Alas ! the words of Jesus, we must fear, 
are . of very little moment to this dignitary of the 
Roman Church in comparison with the words of his 
Church. In an age of agnosticism and doubt the very 
words of Jesus Christ Himself are treated as of no 
moment, and ♦that by one who professes to be a Chris- 
tian, and who is constantly denouncing Protestants for 
inconsistency. 

The outcome of his whole argument is the utter 
worthlessness of the Bible. If it is only to be inter- 
preted by the Church, and if the laity are not capable, 
no matter whether ignorant or learned, of understand- 
ing it, one wonders why it was written. As a fact, the 
Church has never given an infallible explanation of a 
single chapter of the Bible. After this we cannot be 
surprised that so many of the nations, over whom the 
Church of Rome once had unlimited control, have 
become infidel. I can only marvel that this chapter 
in Cardinal Gibbons' '' Faith of our Fathers " has not 
been made use of by infidels as the strongest argument 
ever penned against the Christian religion. What a 
farce religion would be if the Bible was the utterly 
useless, and decidedly misleading, book which he would 
have us believe ! And what a sneer at the very 
preaching of Jesus recorded therein is contained in 
the way in which His words are so spoken of ! If all 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 189 



Scripture is to be understood by the interpretation of 
the Church, are we, then, to place Jesus Christ Himself 
at the feet of the Pope, and require that He shall submit 
the meaning of His own words to men who have been 
amongst the vilest breakers of His' commandments ? 
Truly the Son of man is crucified afresh in the Church 
of Rome century after century. 

But this is not all. In this same book we find the 
statement that the words of our Divine Lord in John 
V. 39 do not mean what they say. Cardinal Gibbons 
admits that there is such a passage in the Bible as 
*' Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have 
eternal life ; and they are they which testify of Me." 
He says this is triumphantly quoted in favour of private 
interpretation of the Bible, "but it proves nothing of 
the kind." It is almost useless to controvert this asser- 
tion. Those who have Bibles can see for themselves, 
by reading the whole passage, how cleverly the denial 
is framed. In the last .verse of this very chapter 
our Lord reproaches the Jews with not believing the 
writings of Moses ; and yet this poor Cardinal w^ould 
have us believe that our Lord did not mean what He 
said when He gave the comm.and to search the 
Scriptures. It is pitiful to see the subterfuges, the 
evasions, the explanations which explain nothing, to 
which the Cardinal is driven to uphold the unscriptural" 
teaching of his Church. 

But let us suppose for a moment that he is right, and 
that the Bible is of no use except as a mere record of 
fact — if indeed it is of use even so far, since the plainest 
and most sacred facts, the very recorded words of 
our Lord, may be made to mean whatever the Church 
pleases — what ground has the Church for its authority ? 
Take, say, the Bible— if it is as worthless to the world 



190 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

as the Cardinal would have us believe — and what have 
we left ? Nothing but " tradition " and the Fathers. 

Now this is an important point in the controversy. 
It is evident, even to the cool self-assertion of Roman 
controversialists, that the Pope cannot stand like 
Mahomet's cofiin, between heaven and earth. Even an 
infallible Pope must have some ground on which to 
place his infallibility. He cannot come forward and say, 
" I am infallible ; you must believe me, because I say 
so." Practically this is what Rome does say, but it is 
delicately modified. Rome declares that the Bible says 
that St. Peter was the head of the Church, the rock 
on which the Church was founded. Now we let pass 
the bare assertion which this claim makes. It is true 
that Rome says so, but it is also true that a large 
number of the Fathers of the Church say that this is 
not the true interpretation of the passage in question. 
But let that pass also. Where, we ask, is there in 
the whole of Scripture one solitary word which says, 
or even implies, that St. Peter was to have for his 
successors a series of infallible Popes ? Let Rome 
prove this, and the case is ended. The only text on 
which Rome attempts to base this claim is the one 
in which our Lord promises to be with His Church 
to the end of the world. This text is worth careful 
examination, in view of the use which has been made 
of it. (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20.) " Go ye therefore, and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." Now where is there one 
word in this text which even infers that St. Peter 
should have successors who should be infallible ? The 



teachij^g of the bible and the church. 191 



inference which Rome draws from this text is simply 
absurd. 

The Apostles were to teach all things which Christ 
commanded them ; but St. Paul tells us that if an angel 
from heaven should preach any other gospel to them 
than that which he had preached he should be accursed. 
Now how were the disciples to judge of this, unless 
they used their own reason ? We find also that there 
were such serious differences of opinion between the 
Apostles themselves, that most certainly no one Apostle 
had the exclusive power to decide all matters of con- 
troversy ; and if St. Peter had not this power — and the 
Bible narrative plainly shows that he had not — how 
could the Pope have what St. Peter had not ? 

But there is a deeper depth of unbelief — and shall 
I say blasphemy ? — into which the Cardinal has fallen. 
He says plainly that -though ''most Christians pray to 
the Holy Ghost, the practice is nowhere to be found in 
the Bible." If he believes the Holy Ghost to be God, 
why should he.make any such remark ? We shall be told 
next that the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Ghost 
is not declared in the Bible, and that it remained for the 
Church, which does so many wonderful things, to declare 
the Holy Ghost to be God. He says that '' fools rush 
in where angels fear to tread," and we agree with him. 
His description of the exact value of the Bible as an 
authority is of a piece with his declaration about the 
Holy Ghost ; and, by the way, it should be noted that if 
the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Ghost is not in 
the Bible, as Cardinal Gibbons implies, that Church, and 
that Church alone, has the power to declare the Holy 
Ghost God. Yet such is the unconscious absurdity of 
the argument, that the Roman Catholic Church bases 
all her claims on the supposed exceptional gifts to her 



192 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



of the Holy Ghost. So she first declares the Holy 
Ghost Divine, and then declares that she is inspired 
by the Holy Ghost. This chapter ends with a stupen- 
dous falsehood. The Cardinal writes : — ^ 

''After his ordination every priest is obliged in 
conscience to devote upwards of an hour each day to 
the perusal of the Word of God. I am not aware that 
clergymen of other denominations are bound by the 
same duty." 

I do trust that some minister of the Gospel, whose 
public position will prevent "the Cardinal from refusing 
a reply to, or trifling with him, will ask him to state 
where the authority is to be found for this assertion. 

When, where, and under what circumstances are 
priests obliged to spend an hour every day in the 
perusal of God's Word ? They are certainly obliged to 
read the Breviary, as the Roman Catholic prayer-book 
for priests is called, but there is little indeed in this book 
of the word of God. Every Protestant who reads the 
Cardinal's book will conclude that his statement is true ; 
but how far it is from being even approximately true 
no one knows better than the very reverend falsifier. 
It is a time when plain words are best. I have heard 
priests complain again and again of the tissue of lies' 
and legends which they are obliged to recite daily from 
their Breviary, which contains besides only a few texts 
of Scripture and a few psalms. 

We have remarked that V\^hen the Bible published in 
France by M. Lassarre was forbidden by the Pope, after 
it had been approved by him, there was a great outcry, 
especially in this country. After the Protestant press 
had got hold of the facts they could not well be denied, 
and even the Roman-controlled press in America could 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 193 

not be induced to hush up the scandal altogether. 
Something had to be done, and the veracious Cardinal 
was just the one to do it. Accordingly he preached a 
sermon in his cathedral at Baltimore, in which he uttered 
more heresy than he could do penance for in the course 
of ten lifetimes. But what matter ? It was all for the 
Church. And had not the Church given him its highest 
honours, and might he not even yet aspire to the highest 
honour of all ? 

Now in his book, from which we have made some 
extracts, he has said in plain terms that the Bible is of 
very little use to any one. Here are his own words : 
''It was by preaching alone that Christ intended to convert 
the nations ... no nation has ever yet been converted 
by the agency of Bible associations." Further he says 
on the same page that '' Christ never commanded His 
Apostles to write a line of Scripture." But some one 
who knew the Bible better than this Roman Cardinal 
must have called his attention to the inexpediency of 
allowing this flagrant falsehood to continue in print, for 
he has added in a footnote, ''except when He directed 
St. John to write the Apocalypse ; " as if there could be 
exceptions, as if the one great fact that all Scripture was 
given expressly for our instruction was not sufficient 
evidence that we should have it placed on record. The 
New Testament writers were moved to write by God 
the Holy Ghost, and surely that is sufficient for any 
ordinary Christian. In the eagerness of the Cardinal to 
clear his Church of the blame and shame of suppress- 
ing the Bible, he has let himself run into heresy, and 
if he ever becomes Pope, it will be a curious question 
whether he can validly hold the infallible throne after 
such a lapse. 

There are two things which the Roman Catholic 

13 



194 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



Church has always found necessary for its existence, 
and these are the power to persecute and the power to 
curse. She cannot persecute unless she has temporal 
power, which will enable her to torture, or imprison, or 
kill those against whom she has any cause of complaint ; 
hence her great desire to obtain temporal power. But 
she is free to anathematise and curse ; and a careful 
glance at the history of the Church of Rome will show 
that she only restrains herself from these weapons 
when she is afraid of public opinion being too strongly 
against her. 

But in the matter of cursing she is not restricted 
to the cursing of individuals. She curses the holders 
of certain opinions, and she pronounces the opinions 
accursed as well as the persons who hold them. This 
is a subject little thought of, or understood. As the 
Church of Rome has found that the reading of the Bible 
is a great hindrance to the success of the Roman Catholic 
religion, she has at different times cursed the readers of 
the Bible, and the reading of the Bible also. This of 
course she denies ; but look at her official documents, 
and the case is proved against her. Cardinal Gibbons 
has written and published a book on the Roman 
Catholic religion, a chapter of which is, as I have said, 
occupied in showing what a useless and mischievous 
book the Bible is, and he has also preached a sermon 
in which he has praised the Bible, and advised people 
to read it. Now, as the matter is very important, we 
place here side by side a series of propositions which 
the Pope has cursed, in his '* infallible " Bull Unigenitus, 
and a series of extracts from the sermon of Cardinal 
Gibbons, which will show that he has deserved the 
curse of his own Church, for he has actually declared 
to be true what his Church has affirmed to be accursed. 



i 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 195 



The condemned and accursed propositions will be 
found on the left-hand side of the page, and the cardinal's 
propositions facing them on the right-hand side. 



PROPOSITIONS CONDEMNED 

BY THE BULL Unigenitiis. 

" It is useful at all times and 
in all places and to all sorts of 
folk to study the Scriptures, to 
understand their spirit, and the 
piety and the mysteries they 
teach. 

" This study of Holy Writ . . . 
is for all the world. 

" The sacred obscurity of the 
word of God furnishes no ex- 
cuse even to laymen for neg- 
lecting to read the same. 

"The Lord's Day should be 
hallowed by pious reading, 
especially of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. 

" To forbid the reading of the 
Scriptures, more particularly of 
the Gospel, to Christians is to 
interdict for children of the 
light the use of light." 



PROPOSITIONS AFFIRMED BY 
CARDINAL GIBBONS. 

" I strongly exhort you to 
sanctify this season of Lent by 
stud3nng the Bible at least ten 
or fifteen minutes every day, 
especially the New Testament 
and the Psalms. 

" The Scriptures ought to be 
the garden of the priest, as said 
St. Charles Borromeo, and of the 
laity as well. What is good for 
the one is good for the other. 

"You can study and ponder 
over it in your homes till it 
impresses itself upon your 
heart. No other agency has 
produced such a revolution in 
society as the Bible. 

" We should be always ready 
when temptation comes with 
the Scriptures in our hearts, for 
they are the best antidote for 
sin." 



But there is, if possible, a deeper depth. The official 
organ of the cardinal, published in Baltimore, chimes 
in with the amazing assertion that the reading of the 
Bible is the cause of modern paganism. What a terrible 
state of things when the sacred book of the Christian 
has become such a menace to Christianity. It is curious 
how Romanists overlook the fact that it is in Roman 
Catholic countries, where tradition and the Church is 
put before the Word of God, that infidelity most of all 
flourishes. It is because people do not believe the 



196 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Bible, and not because they read it, that infidehty in- 
creases. As the matter is so serious, we give the very 
words of the Catholic Mirror^ the Cardinal's organ : — 

^'The development of the modern paganism that is 
spreading on every hand among non-Catholics is the 
logical result of an open Bible as the sole rule of faith. 
Catholics have never been dependent upon it for 
authority in the practice of their religion." 

But there is yet the consideration that the Fathers 
do not agree among themselves. By the Third Article 
of Pope Pius' Creed every Roman Catholic priest must 
^' promise, vow, and swear most constantly to hold and 
profess" as follows: — 

^' I also admit the Scriptures, according to the sense 
which the holy Mother Church has held and does hold, 
to whom it belongs to judge the true sense and inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures ; nor will I ever take and 
interpret them otherwise than according to the unani- 
mous consent of the Fathers." 

And now let us see what was the teaching of the 
Fathers on this subject. The article, like many others 
from the same source, is anything but clear. First, the 
Church is held to be the true and only interpreter of 
Scripture, and then the Fathers are declared to be the 
interpreters. At the fourth session of the Council of 
Trent, held April 1 546, a decree was passed in which 
it is enacted, '' that in order to restrain petulant spirits, 
no one relying en his own skill shall in matters of 
faith and of morals pertaining to the edification of 
Christian practice, wresting the sacred Scriptures to 
his own sense, dare to interpret them contrary to the 
unanimous agreement of the Fathers." 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 197 

Now if there is one enactment of the Church by 
which the Roman Catholic is more bound than another 
it is by the decrees of the Council of Trent. The 
decree on the subject of the authority of Scripture is 
one which deserves special notice. The circumstances 
under which it was enacted should also be recalled. 
This Council was convened for the purpose of checking 
the advance of liberality of thought then inaugurated, 
under the pressure of the Protestant Reformation. 
Every care was taken as to the very words in which 
its decisions were made. Rome was seriously alarmed 
at the appeal to Scripture made by the Reformers, and 
at the spread of Gospel light. 

It should be observed that there is a great difference 
between the tradition which is purely oral and the 
tradition which is written. The first decree on tradition 
was passed in the First Canon of the Fourth Council 
of Constantinople, a.d. 869, reputed the Eighth General 
Council ; but this Canon clearly pointed out a tradition 
presented in the records of the Church, and handed 
down by a succession of witnesses, and not the oral 
tradition now claimed by the Roman Church. Of 
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (a.d. 70), the historian 
Eusebius said : " He exhorted them (the Churches) to 
adhere firmly to the tradition of the Apostle, which for 
the sake of greater security he deemed it necessary to 
attest by committing it to writing." 

The earliest Latin Father, Tertullian, an African 
(a.d. 194), while he set great value on custom and tradi- 
tion, appealed to the Scriptures alone as of authority. 
In arguing with the heretics he demanded from them 
proofs from Scripture. 

" If it is not written, let him fear the curse allotted to 
such as add or diminish." 



198 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

The passages from the early Christian writers which 
insist on the Scriptures as alone of authority in matters 
of doctrine are so numerous, and so well known, that 
it is at the present day almost labour and time lost to 
repeat them ; they are to be found in almost every 
Protestant controversial work. I shall nevertheless 
transcribe a few of them merely as illustrations. 
What could be more striking than the words delivered 
at the First General Council of Nice (a.d. 325) by 
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in the name of the three 
hundred and eighteen bishops then assembled ? He 
says : — 

" Believe the things that are written ; the things that 
are not written neither think upon nor inquire into." 
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (a.d 379), says : — 

*' Let a man be persuaded of the truth of that alone 
which has the seal of the written testimony." And 
again he wrote : ^' Forasmuch as this is supported by 
no testimony of Scripture, we will reject it as false." 

And Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (a.d. 356), places 
the matter very clearly before us. He says : — 

^' Not even the least of the Divine and holy mysteries 
of the faith ought to be handed down without the 
Divine Scriptures. Do not simply give faith to me 
- while I am speaking these words to you ; have the 
proofs of what I say from the Holy Word ; for the 
security and preservation of our faith are not supported 
by ingenuity of speech, but by the proofs of the sacred 
Scriptures." 

Jerome, a Presbyter of Rome (a.d. 382), says: — 

^' The Church of Christ, which has Churches in the 
whole world, is united by the unity of the Spirit, and 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 199 

has the cities of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, 
and the Apostles ; she has not gone forth from her 
boundaries, that is, from the Holy Scriptures." 

" Let not these words be heard between us, I say, 
or, You say, but rather let us hear ' Thus saith the 
Lord ; ' for there are certain books of the Lord in 
whose authority both sides acquiesce. There let us 
seek the Church ; there let us judge our cause. Take 
away therefore all those things which each alleges 
against the other, and w^hich are derived from any 
other source than the canonical books of Holy Scrip- 
ture. But perhaps some will ask. Why take away such 
authorities ? Because I would have the holy Church 
proved not by human documents but by the Word of 
God. 

The New York Churchman^ the organ of the Episco- 
pal Church in America, writing on this subject, says : — 

" The Cardinal has probably a ^ dispensation ' to say 
what he chooses to the unutterably gulHble Americans ; 
because nothing is easier than to make him recant and 
withdraw when these concessions have served their 
purpose." 

Mr. C. H. Collette, in his valuable pamphlet, " Is Dr. 
Manning a Loyal Englishman ? " gives quotations from 
the essays of Dr. Doyle, well known as a controversialist 
and bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the early 
part of the present century, which show how very little 
opinion he had of the infallible utterances of the Popes 
on Scripture interpretation : — 

"As to the arguments from Scripture or tradition 
adduced by him (Pope Gregory VIL), or by any of his 
successors, in support of their temporal claim, they 
are such as will amuse, or rather excite the pity of 



200 INSIDE THE CIIUkCH OF ROME. 

a serious mind. One (Pope Boniface VIII.) wisely 
observed that because an apostle said to our Lord, 
' Behold there are two swords here/ the Popes have 
a right to depose kings. Such an inference might 
appear plausible to him who was already resolved 
on an usurpation of right ; but a Christian is forced 
to blush at such a profanation of the Word of God. 
Gregory . . . quotes from St. Paul to the Corinthians. 
(i Cor. vi. 3.) * Know you not that we shall judge 
angels themselves ? how much more worldly things ? ' 
and from this passage he claims to be invested with 
power of invading the rights of kings and emperors, 
nay, of remodelling the state of society throughout the 
world . . . but to offer arguments against such theories 
is too humiliating to the common sense of men." 

With one more evidence of the small respect which 
the Church of Rome has for the Scriptures, and of the 
way in which she mutilates the Bible to serve her own 
purposes, we shall conclude this part of our subject. 

If there is one subject more sacred than another, and 
with which it might be supposed that Rome would 
not tamper, it is the commandments of God. I had 
often heard, when young, that the Roman Catholic 
Church in her catechisms left out part of the ten com- 
mandments. When I was considering the question of 
entering the Roman Catholic Church, I asked the priest 
to whom I went for instruction if this was true. He 
denied it indignantly, and of course I believed him. 
I had yet to learn that you cannot depend on the truth 
of one single word which a Roman Catholic may say, 
when controversy is in question. I know that this 
statement will shock many Romanists, but, as in other 
cases, the question is not whether the statement is 
very shocking, but whether it is true. Romanists have 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 201 

been again and again detected in false quotations, and 
in the most barefaced forgeries, and when detected 
they have simply gone on repeating the same falsehoods 
as if they were facts. 

There is of course always an object to be gained in 
all this, but the object is not truth. It seems utterly 
amazing that any man should wish to deceive others, 
or lend himself to such deliberate lying that it is very 
difficult for honest men to believe it exists, even when the 
evidence is plainly before their eyes ; and it is to this 
unwillingness of honest men to believe others capable 
of a barefaced deceit, of which respectable and self- 
respecting heathen would be ashamed, that Romanists 
owe the toleration which their religion has received 
from Protestants. 

Would to God that Roman Catholics examined for 
themselves the foundations of their religion. The 
Roman Catholic Church is like a family with a bad 
reputation, which requires concealment. It cannot 
bear the light because its deeds are evil. Honest 
men are not afraid to meet facts, or to have them 
known. When a Roman Cardinal can write about 
the Bible, as Cardinal Gibbons has done, it is all over 
with Rome. When so many shifts and evasions are 
necessary to prove that the Bible was not intended for 
ordinary use, there must be a deep reason for this 
evasion. There is a very grave difference between 
St. Paul and Cardinal Gibbons on this subject, and 
I for one must admit that I prefer to be guided by 
St. Paul. (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) ^* All Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness ; that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 



202 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

Plainer words could not be used than these. The 
miserable subterfuge by which Cardinal Gibbons and 
men of his class try to make it appear as if the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament only were referred to is 
beneath criticism, and should be condemned; as it 
deserves, by every Christian. The words of the Apostle 
are '' all Scripture." The words of the Apostle are that 
the Scriptures are given by inspiration of God ; and yet 
this Cardinal tells his poor people, who are not even 
allowed to test the truth of his statements, that they 
are merely on a level with the pastoral letters of 
bishops ("_^ Faith of our Fathers," p. 102), and adds the 
false testimony against the Apostles that they never 
circulated the Scriptures, and yet these words of St. 
Paul to Timothy must be well known to him. 

Yes, they are known to him, they are known to God, 
but they are not known to the poor Romanists, who 
would not for one moment suppose that a '' Cardinal " 
of their holy Church would be guilty of deliberate 
deceit. If this does not come under the Bible condem- 
nation pronounced on those who add to, or take from, 
the Word of God, Scripture has no meaning. 

The worship of idols, or of deceased persons, is so 
plainly condemned in the Bible, and so openly practised 
in the Roman Church, that it is no wonder that Rome 
is driven to hide the evidence against herself, and this 
she does by mutilating the commandments. I repeat 
again, that when I was solemnly assured by a Jesuit 
Father that the Roman Church did not mutilate the 
commandments I believed him. I have got wiser since. 
Facts are the best of all arguments, and here are the 
facts. 

Now the first thing which the Romish Church had 
to do was to make the translation of the first command- 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 203 

ment suit the teaching of the Church. An honest 
Church would have suited her teaching to the com- 
mandments. The words on which so much depend 
are these : '' Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor 
serve them." The Romanists alter the word ''image" 
to the word '* thing." I cannot see what is gained by 
this, for the conclusion is all the same, and that con- 
clusion Rome has not dared to deny. The words of 
the Bible are too plain. The circumstances under 
which the commandment w^as given are quite sufficient 
to decide the question, even if it was more complicated 
than it appears. God is a jealous God ; He will not 
share His glory with another. Indeed, if He did, we 
might say with all reverence that He would not be 
God. The Jews of old were quite as much inclined as 
the Romanists of to-day to worship anything except 
God. 

And no doubt another Roman Catholic reason for 
forbidding the reading of the Bible, and trying to 
explain away its value, is that it contains such clear 
denunciations of the idolatry into which the Jews fell, 
and records the terrible punishments inflicted on them 
for their lapses into idolatry. A clear knowledge of 
this might raise inquiries in the minds of Roman 
Catholics, which the Church might not find it convenient 
to answer. Those who engage in controversy with 
Rome should ask for plain answers to plain questions, 
even if it takes many hours to make a Romish priest give 
one. Subterfuge, evasion, deceit, are the weapons of 
Rome. Protestants have no need of such weapons, 
but let us see that we are hot fooled by those who are 
adepts in the use of them. 

The catechism used, and in Ireland used exclusively. 



204 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

commonly known as Butler's Catechism, has the com- 
mandments in the following form : — 

^' I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt not have 
strange Gods before Me. 

^' 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain. 

'' 3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. 

T^ ^ tK ^ yp 

" 9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. 
*' 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods." 

How awful a deceit to practise on poor helpless 
children to deprive them of the knowledge of the com- 
mandments of God by thus mutilating them. It may 
perhaps be remembered that in quoting from the cate- 
chism used in America, which has been approved 
by Rome itself, as well as by Cardinal Gibbons, the 
answer cited to the question, ^' Can any one be saved 
out of the Roman Catholic Church ? " has these words 
as part of the reply : '^ Those who do not seek their 
salvation in the Roman Catholic Church cannot hope 
to be saved in a religion of their own make." Now 
if there ever was a religion to which these words could 
be applied in real earnest it is the Roman Catholic, 
for it has been obliged to use all sorts of shifts and 
evasions to prop up the " religion of its own make." 
The very commandments have to be altered and 
omitted. Twenty-nine Roman Catholic catechisms — 
being those used in England and foreign countries — 
were examined by Mr. C. H. Collette, the well-known 
author, and he found that in twenty-seven the second 
commandment was omitted entirely, while in the 
remaining two it was mutilated. If this is not a 
religion of human " make " it is difficult to know what 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 205 

else deserves the term. And why, it should be asked, 
is there the necessity for this mutilation and sup- 
pression of the very word of God ? It is done simply 
and solely to support a system which, if it was founded 
on the Word of God, if it was Divine, as it claims 
to be, would certainly not need to conceal from the 
world the words of the very authority on which it 
claims to be founded. What should we think of the 
governor of a province who claimed the right to govern, 
and yet mutilated and suppressed the very charter of 
the king under whose authority he professed to act ? 

The perversion of human nature is the ground of all 
this evil. Man has always shown a preference for 
false gods, and strange forms of worship. We see this 
in the history of the Jewish Church. Rome is only 
following the course of human nature. In the early 
Church we find the same temptation to turn from God to 
idols, and yet there is nothing more sternly reprobated in 
Scripture. The writings of the Fathers of the Church, 
far from endorsing Rome's modern doctrine of saint 
worship, denounce it most sternly, as sternly as did the 
prophets of old. If the confusion of teaching, and the 
metaphysical subtleties of the Romish Church, were 
placed before the public, there is no doubt that it would 
prove strange reading to many, Romanists make a 
great boast of their unity, and unfortunately the general 
public take them at their own valuation. Every 
doctrine of the Romish Church has been the subject 
at one time or another of the most acrimonious dispute. 
The way in which Rome preserves her exterior unity — 
and her unity is only exterior — may do very well for 
children, or for those who take all that she says 
without question, but it will not convince men who 
use their God-given reason. 



2o6 TNSTDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

The custom of praying to the departed unquestionably 
had its origin in the custom of praying /or the departed. 
It is curious and instructive, in view of Rome's departure 
from the faith once dehvered to the saints, to note the 
progress of Roman Cathohc error and invention. 
Roman CathoUcs admit that the saints cannot hear our 
prayers unless they are in heaven, and the Church does 
not allow, or says that she does not allow, persons to be 
prayed to publicly unless she has canonised them, or, 
as we may say, declared officially that they are in 
heaven. Nor has the Roman Church ever declared 
how the saints hear us. As they are not themselves 
omniscient or omnipotent, it is clear that, if they hear 
us at all, there must be some way, apart from their own 
faculties, by which they can know what is said to 
them on earth ; and Roman theologians differ on these 
subjects as they do on so many others. 

It is curious, and should be observed, that Cyril of 
Jerusalem, and other early Fathers who are quoted 
by the Romanists as authority for praying for the 
dead, pray for the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and 
others to whom the Church of Rome prays to-day. If 
these Fathers were not sure, or had not a reasonable 
hope that certain souls were in heaven, how can the 
modern Church of Rome be supposed to know better ? 
So true is this and so undeniable, that Cardinal Wiseman 
was obliged to admit in his published lectures, that " there 
is no doubt" that the saints are prayed for in the 
ancient liturgies, as well as all the other faithful departed. 
This is a frank admission, and we may be sure it would 
never have been made if there was the least hope of 
denying it, because its consequences tell so strongly 
against the Roman theory. But he explains this, which 
is a clear condemnation of modern saint worship, by 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 207 



saying that it was done before the Church had pro- 
claimed them "to belong to a happier order." The 
early Christians did not invoke the saints, or even the 
Virgin Mary. They prayed for the repose of their 
souls, thus proving that they did not consider them 
hoHer than others ; and the Roman Catholic Church, 
according to Cardinal Wiseman and other Romish 
theologians, had to canonise the saints before they 
could be invoked. In other words, the Romish Church 
had to anticipate the day of judgment, and do what 
God Himself had not done. 

There is no trace of prayers to saints in the services 
of the primitive Church, though there are prayers for 
the dead — a very different matter. But if there are not 
prayers to the saints, there is very clear and plain 
condemnation of the worship of saints. In the edition 
of the works of St. Ignatius, published by the Bene- 
dictines, there is a very remarkable passage, which 
should set all disputes at rest as to the teaching of the 
early Church on the invocation of saints and angels. 
St. Irenaeus was Bishop of Lyons, and was martyred 
in A.D. 165. He says : — 

" The Church throughout the whole, world does 
nothing by invocation of angels, nor by incantations, nor 
by other depraved and curious means, but with cleanli- 
ness, purity, and openness, directing prayers to the Lord 
who made all things ; and, calling upon the name of 
Jesus Christ our Lord, it exercises its powers for the 
benefit and not for the seducing of mankind." 

So strongly does this passage condemn invocation of 
angels and saints, that the Roman Church is driven, as 
usual, to explain away facts for the benefit of the faithful, 
by saying that Irenseus is speaking of the invocation of 



2o8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF i^ME, 

evil spirits. Now the passage itself is the best refuta- 
tion of this misrepresentation, for it forbids plainly the 
" invocation of angels ; " and to make the matter still 
plainer, the reason for forbidding this practice is stated, 
and this reason applies equally to the invocation of 
saints. The invocation of angels is forbidden because 
it is only *^ to the Lord who made all things " that we 
should pray, and it is only on the "name of Jesus 
Christ our Lord" we should call. Thus we see the 
doctrine of the early Christian Church was exactly the 
same as the doctrine of the Bible Christian Church of 
to-day. And I may call all denominations of Christians 
the Bible Christian Church, for they look to the Bible, 
and the Bible alone, for their doctrine, while the Roman 
Church practically refuses to be guided by the Bible, 
and looks to the Church alone, as Cardinal Gibbons has 
declared plainly. But there is yet more and equally 
important evidence as to the opinions of the early 
Christians. 

In the year 366 a sect called Angelites was founded, 
who were so called because they dedicated chapels to 
St. Michael. A Council assembled at Laodicea con- 
demned them, and decreed that men " ought not to 
leave the Church of God and invoke angels." But what 
avails such plain statements when Rome can teach 
what she pleases ? This decree being far too plain to 
suit a Church which appeals to antiquity when antiquity 
agrees with her, and corrects antiquity when it does 
not agree with her, in some Roman Catholic editions 
of the acts of this Council the passage was altered to 
read "angles" instead of ''angels." The silliness and 
absurdity of this change did not matter when Rome 
had a point to gain. St. Augustine says : — 

" Let not our religion be the worship of dead men. 



TEACHING OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. 209 

because if they lived piously they are not disposed to 
seek such honours ; but they wish Him to be worshipped 
by us by whom, being enlightened, they rejoice that we 
are deemed worthy of being partakers with them. They 
are to be honoured, then, on the ground of imitation, not 
to be adored on the ground of religion ; and if they 
lived ill, wherever they be they must not be worshipped. 
This also we may believe, that the most perfect angels 
themselves and the most excellent servants of God 
wish that we, with themselves, should worship God, in 
the contemplation of whom they are blessed. . . . 
Therefore we honour them [Angels] with love not with 
service. Nor do we build temples to them ; for they 
are unwilling to be so honoured by us, because they 
know that when we are good we are temples of the 
Most High God. Well therefore is it written that a 
man was forbidden by an angel to adore him." 

It should be said that this passage is given in the 
Roman Catholic (Benedictine) edition of St. Augustine's 
works. 

We may add here a few passages from the undis- 
puted writings of the Fathers, showing what their 
teaching was on the important subject of the reading 
of the Scriptures. 

Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in the name of the 318 
bishops assembled at the first General Council of Nice 
(a.d. 325), said : — 

'' Believe the things that are written ; the things that 
are not written neither think upon nor inquire into." 

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (a.d. 379), says : — 

'' Let a man be persuaded of the truth of that alone 
which has the seal of the written testimony." 

14 



2IO INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

And again he wrote : — " Forasmuch as this is sup- 
ported by no testimony of Scripture we will reject it 
as false." 

And Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (a.d. 356), places the 
matter very clearly before us. He says : — 

^' Not even the least of the Divine and holy mysteries 
of the faith ought to be handed down without the 
Divine Scriptures. Do not simply give faith to me 
while I am speaking these words to you ; have the 
proofs of what I say from the holy word ; for the 
security and preservation of our faith are not supported 
by ingenuity of speech, but by the proofs of the sacred 
Scriptures." 

Jerome, a Presbyter of Rome (a.d. 382), says : — 

" The Church of Christ, which has Churches in the 
whole world, is united by the unity of the spirit, and 
has the cities of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, and 
the Apostles ; she has not gone forth from her boun- 
daries, that is, from the Holy Scriptures. 

" In them (the Scriptures) we have learned Christ, in 
them we have learned the Church. 



CHAPTER X. 

CONVENT LIFE. 

"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, 
guide the house." — I Tim. v. 14. 

THERE are few subjects of greater interest to the 
world at large than that of convent life. A 
certain mystery surrounds it, and it is not only the 
young who are attracted by mystery. Is it true, people 
ask, that these poor sisters are shut up for ever from" 
their friends ? that they are cruelly treated ? that they 
live immoral lives ? that they are half starved ? that 
they are unhappy ? that — but there is no end to the 
questions that are asked on this subject, and very often 
people who only wish to know what is true are sorely 
perplexed to know what to believe, because they hear 
such contradictory statements. 

The subject is one of great importance, and deserves 
the most careful investigation. As far as I am 
personally concerned, I can only say that I have had 
thirty years' experience of convent life, and that what- 
ever I say, good or bad, for or against, is the result of 
this long experience. It is no wonder that there is 
so much perplexity and misunderstanding. So many 
Protestant parents send their children to convent 
schools, where they are happy and well treated, that an 
idea has spread naturally that sisters have been very 



212 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

much maligned and misrepresented, and that the hfe of 
a sister is quite different from what has been supposed 
by Protestants of a past generation. 

Young people respond naturally and quickly to 
affectionate treatment, and certainly the children of the 
upper class receive nothing else from the sisters. 
Quick as children are to make observations, their im- 
pressions are limited to what comes very plainly and 
directly under their eyes. Their observations are natu- 
rally superficial, and they have all the self-confidence 
and ignorance of childhood. The parents often do not 
look beyond the surface. The sisters are kind to the 
children, and that is quite enough to win the parent s 
heart. And so the evil goes on year after year ; and 
some day, when the parents find the result has been 
that the child is so won by the sisters that she cares no 
longer for home or friends, and that she too desires 
to live the life which has been pictured to her as so 
beautiful, in the days when impressions are so easily 
made, they are amazed and angry, and denounce the 
sisters, and the Church, and their own child also, for 
what, after all, is but the natural consequence of their 
own action, a consequence which it was simply their 
own fault that they did not foresee. Perhaps experi- 
enced friends, perhaps a faithful minister, had warned 
them long since of the risk which they were running 
in placing their children under such influences, but all 
had been in vain. It ,was so " convenient " to send 
the child to the sisters. Other children might be in- 
fluenced to their hurt, but their child would be surely 
safe. These parents did not realize that it is dangerous 
to play with fire. It was so much cheaper to send 
their child to the convent • school ; it was cheaper for 
time, but what about eternity ? But they found, to 



CONVENT LIFE. 213 



their cost, to their Hfelong sorrow, the fatal mistake 
which they made. They placed their child deliberately 
in danger, and when the harm was done they blamed 
every one, except themselves. 

But even when this result does not follow, other 
results must ensue, which are scarcely less dangerous, 
scarcely less fatal. As we have said, it is but natural 
that children sent to convent schools should love the 
sisters. And what is the result ? We are very slow to 
think evil of those whom we love, or from whom we 
have received any benefit. Impressions are often far 
stronger than arguments, and the impressions of child- 
hood, being unreasoning, are more difficult to eradicate 
than those which are tempered by experience in later 
years. Besides, the child, when she comes to reflect in 
after life, will say : "Well, I was so many years in a 
convent school, and met the sisters every day, and I 
saw nothing wrong, therefore all these stories about 
them must be untrue." When grown up she does not 
reflect on the very important fact that anything which 
might have scandalised her was necessarily and carefully 
kept from her knowledge. So she is worse than igno- 
rant. A person who never was in a convent school, 
who never associated with sisters, would not have any 
prejudice in favour of convents, and would not therefore 
be so likely to listen to the seductions of Romanism. 
For in truth it is a religion full of seductions. There 
is such an apparent sanctity of life. There is such an 
apparent sanctity of practice. There are such seductive 
appeals to the senses, for it is a religion of the senses. 
There is such an apparent, though not real, unity of 
religious belief. 

Why is it that Christian men and women, who profess 
to believe the Gospel, sanction and even help a Church 



214 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

which proves its anti-Christianity so plainly by its 
worldliness ? You have an open Bible and know that 
the Word of God has a greater value than a ''pastoral 
letter " of Pope or bishop. You who have the law and 
the testimony, why do not you ask yourselves plainly, 
Is this a Christian Church ? It is not a question of 
what man says, but of what God says. Understand 
plainly, and once for all, that Rome has abandoned the 
Bible as the sole rule of faith. There are too many 
things in the Bible plainly against Rome for Rome to 
allow it to be read freely. 

Ask yourself the plain question, What is this Church 
founded on, if it is not founded on the Word of God ? 
We read in the Bible that in the last days perilous 
times shall come, that the cry will be, " Here is Christ, 
and there is Christ." Even the very elect may be 
deceived for a time. If this is so — and it must be so, 
because God says it, and we at least will not yet 
abandon God for the Pope or any man — what care 
should we not take that we may not also be deceived ? 
If we once abandon the Bible, where will the matter 
end ? Keep to the one plain fact. Remember the 
teaching of the Church of Rome is unchangeable, and 
that it has said plainly that the Bible alone is not 
sufficient for our salvation. No matter what specious 
arguments may be used to enforce this claim, we know 
it is directly against the plain teaching of Scripture 
itself. 

This may seem a digression from the subject of the 
present chapter, but it is far from being so. Our object 
is to show the danger of Roman Catholic schools for 
Protestant children, and not the least danger is the 
absence of all religious teaching. One of two things 
the sisters must do. Either they must break their 



CONVENT LIFE. 215 

solemn promises to the parents of the children com- 
mitted to their charge, and teach these children the 
Roman Catholic religion, or they must teach them no 
religion. Roman Catholics are very fond of denouncing 
public schools as '' Godless schools," but the real 
Godless schools are Roman Catholic. 

No educated Roman Catholic will deny that it is a 
mortal sin, that it is a sin which, if not repented of, will 
consign the person who has committed it to eternal 
damnation, to teach any child, be he Romanist or Pro- 
testant, any religion but that which is taught, allowed, 
and approved by the Roman Church. This very 
subject was the cause of the fiercest debate in Ireland 
within living memory. 

The English Government was very properly anxious 
that the rising generation of the Irish nation should 
have the benefit of a liberal and thorough education. 
But how to accomplish this most desirable object, with- 
out raising a storm which could not be easily quelled, 
was a problem which statesmen had to decide. At last 
a plan was arranged which it was hoped would com- 
bine piety and patriotism, and satisfy all. National 
schools were established wherein the Irish children 
were to be taught everything, except their own religion, 
and the history of their own country. The national 
schools are now an accomplished fact, and it is not a 
little curious to note how the excitements of one gene- 
ration are forgotten in those of the next. Those 
national schools were warmly supported by the^ far- 
seeing Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately. 
After fierce contention on both sides, a compromise 
was agreed upon, and a Concordat was arranged, the 
terms of which were that no religion whatever was 
to be taught in the schools during the regular school 



2i6 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

hours. But certain short times were fixed during the 
day, in which reUgious instruction could be given to 
those whose parents wished them to receive it ; and a 
strict rule was made and enforced, that children were 
not to be present in the room when instruction was 
given to other children of a different denomination. 
There was, in fact, a conscience clause, which was more 
or less strictly observed. 

Now it is to the working of this conscience clause 
that I wish to call particular attention, and I may add 
here that I speak on these subjects from years of 
personal knowledge and experience. The great con- 
tention of Romanists on the school question is that 
religion should enter into every study, or rather, that 
every subject should be taught according to the Roman 
Catholic view of such subjects. For instance, to take 
an historical example. A Roman Catholic who was 
teaching history in the fifteenth century would have 
been obliged by the Church to teach that Joan of Arc 
was a very wicked woman, who had been justly con- 
demned by the Church for her many crimes, and for 
trying to save her country in consequence of certain 
supernatural revelations, all of which were delusions. 
A Roman Catholic teaching history to-day would be 
obliged to teach that this same unfortunate woman, 
who was burned alive by the inhuman cruelty of the 
ecclesiastics of the fifteenth century, was a great saint, 
for whose canonisation every effort should be made, 
and that her revelations should at least be treated with 
respect. Hence what is right to be taught even on 
historical subjects must vary with the varying opinions 
of those who for the time being represent the '* infallible" 
and unchanging Church. 

The same holds good in religious matters. In the 



CONVENT LIFE, 217 



Irish national schools, during the school hours, except for 
a very brief space of time, the schools are *' godless " as 
far as they well can be, for every sign and symbol of a 
religious nature is removed or carefully hidden. During 
the entire of the school hours, with a very brief exception, 
no religion of any kind is allowed to be taught. The 
amount of lying, deceit, and '* pious fraud " which is 
committed to evade this rule and to do away with the 
obligations of this miscalled '' conscience clause," would 
be impossible to a respectable heathen, or to any one 
except a Roman Catholic priest, who, whatever may be 
said to the contrary, certainly practises the axiom that 
the end justifies the means. 

The much-enduring Inspectors of these national 
schools, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, are 
obliged, or are supposed to be obliged, to see that the 
^'conscience clause" is strictly enforced. But what can 
they do ? The National Board, as the governing body _ 
is called, is entirely under the control of the Roman 
Catholic bishops. The position of Inspector is much 
desired, and there is short shrift for the man who has 
the courage to object to any arrangement that has the 
approval of the parish priest. 

It should be remembered that a very large proportion 
of the Irish national schools are under the care of 
sisters, or, as they are called in Ireland, nuns ; and it 
would be considered absolutely profane, and too horrible 
to be endured, if the Inspector should say one word of 
disapproval of anything which these sisters may do. 
Therefore all kinds of pious frauds are carried on freely, 
and the children who know the rules well are habitually 
taught lessons in deceit. I cannot see that it is any 
less deceit because it is done for the greater honour and 
glory — shall I say of God, or of the Roman Catholic 



2i8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

religion ? Statues of the Blessed Virgin are kept covered 
up, or in presses. The sign of the cross is made when 
the Inspector is not present, and is not made, or only 
made surreptitiously, when he is on the premises. And 
worse still, the children are taught to consider their 
religion persecuted, because these things cannot be 
done openly during school hours. 

If this kind of education is not godless it is certainly 
most demoralising. I doubt if any thing could be more so ; 
and yet we find American Protestants in full sympathy 
with Roman Catholics in their opposition to the public 
schools of the United States, in which at least open 
deceit and lying is not taught. Do Protestants realise 
that if Roman Catholics had schools of their own in 
America, under nominal Government control, the very 
same system of deceit which exists in Ireland would 
be taught in some form or other, and that American 
citizens would soon become as demoralised as Europe 
has become ? 

It is indeed very much to be regretted that Protestants 
do not know more about the inside life of the 
Roman communion. Even most Roman Catholics are 
deplorably ignorant both of the doctrines and the 
practices of their own Church. As this may seem, and 
indeed is a strong statement, I give a brief explanation. 
As for the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, 
Roman Catholics are so sternly forbidden to reason or 
argue, or even think for one moment, that they simply 
learn the catechism, and believe what it teaches without 
the least inquiry as to its meaning What is the use of 
reasoning when reasoning is sinful ? You are told so- 
and-so, and you are to believe so-and-so, or to take the 
choice of eternal damnation, and so the matter ends. 
It is just the same with regard to Roman Catholic 



CONVENT LIFE. 219 



practices ; if the Church says it is right to evade the 
rules of an institution, or to violate the laws of the 
State, it is your Roman Catholic duty to obey, and so 
the matter ends. Roman Catholic sisters and Roman 
Catholic children are therefore irresponsible beings, 
who have to do what they are told. 

I shall show first that the system of Roman Catholic 
teaching in Ireland, and especially in convent schools, 
is godless even for Roman Catholic children, because 
it does not teach them any religion. 

There are two kinds of godless schools, and it is 
difficult to say which is more dangerous to the rising 
generation. There are schools in which no religion 
is taught, and there are schools in which religion is 
taught, but in which certain practices are either taught 
by word of mouth or by example (the most powerful 
of all teaching), which are contrary to Christian morals. 
I propose to show that both these kinds of teaching 
are usual in schools under Roman Catholic control. 

When the national schools were first put under the 
charge of sisters this practical deceit was quite a 
common occurrence. On several occasions the In- 
spectors, who are supposed to make '^ surprise visits," 
came unexpectedly into convent schools, and found 
statues of the Blessed Virgin and the saints exhibited 
openly for the devotion of the children. They were, of 
course very slow to expostulate. Expostulation might 
mean prompt dismissal from their situations, through 
the influence of the priests ; but eventually they had 
to speak, and the sisters obeyed the rules in fear of 
a withdrawal of the grant which they receive, but not 
without many lamentations over the " persecution " to 
which they were subjected. 

It would require more space than can be given to 



220 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



this subject at present to enter into the character of 
the religious teaching given in the sisters' schools 
in Ireland, and the parochial schools, whether under 
sisters or lay teachers in America. But I say at once 
and boldly, that it is not Christian teaching. Protest- 
ants, who would shrink with horror from the very 
idea of making the Bible a forbidden book to their 
own children, are quite easy in their minds when their 
children are deprived of this grace, as they are when 
placed for education in convent schools or colleges. 
The command to '^ Search the Scriptures " is as 
universal as the command to " hear the Church," of 
which the Roman Catholic makes such capital. But 
St. Paul tells us that if even an angel came from heaven 
to preach another gospel than that which he had 
preached he was not to get a hearing. If we are to 
take the Bible at all as a rule of life and as a creed, we 
must take it as it is, and not select some parts for belief 
and calmly lay others aside. 

Yet this is what the Roman Catholic Church does. 
She takes a plain sentence such as the command to 
" hear the Church " ; she says she is the Church, and you 
have got to hear her or be damned ; but she fights very 
shy of the command to " Search the Scriptures," which 
is quite as plain as the other. Now if children are not 
allowed, not to say if they are restrained, from obeying 
a plain command of Christ Himself, the religion which 
teaches them to do this is not a Christian religion, no 
matter what name it may call itself, and children who 
are taught in this fashion are not receiving a Christian 
education. 

It may be said that I have written too much and too 
strongly on the subject of the Bible in schools, but I 
know both sides of this question from practical experi- 



CONVENT LIFE. 221 



ence. I know what it is to be of the household of 
faith, where the Bible was the household book and 
guide, and to be of the household where the Bible 
was, for all practical purposes, a dead letter. It is no 
answer to the argument against the constant reading 
of the Bible, that some of those who read the Bible do 
not live up to its precepts. The question for us is 
simply this : Are we to deprive our children .of free 
access to the Bible ? How many conversions late in 
life are known to have been caused mainly, if not 
altogether, by the recollection of the Bible readings of 
early years ; and does not the inspired Apostle himself 
congratulate Timothy on having been familiar with 
Holy Scripture from a child ? 

A knowledge of the Bible may not prevent those 
who have had that advantage in early life from being 
ensnared by Rome in later years, but when this happens 
it will be found, as a general rule, that the person so en- 
snared was ignorant of the true teaching of the Church 
of Rome, or had not received an intelligent Bible 
teaching. The Roman Church is wiser than the 
children of light. She takes good care that her cate- 
chisms shall be taught to children at the most impres- 
sionable age, and what is then learned is seldom 
forgotten, and is rarely questioned in later life. The 
system of deliberate deceit which is taught to children 
in convent schools, and to boys in Roman Catholic 
colleges, is a crying evil, and it is one which is 
absolutely inseparable from Roman Catholic ed.ucation. 

There has been a great deal of misrepresentation on 
this subject, and a great deal of useless debate. No 
one need expect any Romanist to admit that such 
a doctrine as that the end justifies the means is 
taught by his Church. In fact, Romanists will not 



222 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

admit anything adverse to their Church, and they are 
quite keen enough to know what is considered so. 
Nor will you find in any theological book in plain 
words that the end justifies the means. Rome, above 
all things, avoids plain speaking ; but if it can be shown 
that certain acts are allowed and applauded, when 
these acts are for the advancement of the Church, 
though they are contrary to truth or justice, then the 
fact is proved past dispute that Rome allows that an 
evil action may be done, if the object to be attained is 
what she is pleased to call a good one. Facts are of 
more importance than the way in which the per- 
mission to do them is expressed. We have shown 
that in the Irish national schools there is a constant 
system of evasion of rules, which must weaken the 
respect of the child for authority. All this is justi- 
fied by those who do it on the pretext that they are 
allowed by the Church to do these things, and that the 
Church is above the law of the land, which they are 
only bound to obey when the Church approves of it. 

I do not think that anything can more seriously 
deteriorate the moral character of a child, than seeing 
deceit practised habitual]}^ by those to whom the child 
should look for the highest example of truth. Every 
Protestant mother who sends a child to a convent 
school for education, whether as a boarder or as a day 
scholar, places her child in danger of becoming a 
deliberate deceiver. Remember, once again, that the 
danger is all the greater because the sisters have not 
an idea that they are doing wrong or teaching deceit. 
They are only acting on the great principle of their 
Church, that there is no salvation out of that Church. 
They say, '' The parents of this child are ignorant of the 
true rehgion ; if they knew it they would wish their child 



CONVENT LIFE. 223 

to be taught it. When the parents die they will thank 
us for saving the soul of their child ; besides, as the 
parents knew that we could not teach the child any 
other religion than the Roman Catholic when they 
placed her with us, we are not doing anything wrong." 
In most cases the sisters do not reason at all ; they 
simply act on the principle that the Roman Catholic 
religion being the only one in which the soul can be 
saved, they are fulfilling a sacred duty by teaching the 
child as much as they can of that religion. Even if not 
one word is said to the child, she is surrounded by in- 
fluences which all tend in the one direction. All the 
attractiveness of Rome is ever before her, without a 
word of warning or explanation. The child soon learns 
to hide from her parents anything which might in the 
least alarm them as to what she sees or hears at the 
convent school, for it attracts and pleases her, and she 
fears that if the truth were known that she would be 
removed. A little hint can be given to her to that effect 
by the sisters, or by some of the Roman Catholic 
children, who are very sharp when Protestant children 
are in question ; and then comes the first want of 
confidence between mother and child, and the way is 
paved for the eternal ruin of the little one. 

As for the intellectual training given to children in 
convent schools, it is so inferior that Roman Catholic 
parents would much prefer to send their children to 
Protestant schools if they dared. The sisters may be 
good teachers of music and languages, of fancy work 
which is pronounced '' so beautiful," and which is gene- 
rally so utterly useless in the after life of those who 
spend so much time learning it, but a solid English 
education is rarely given. 

Take, for example, the teaching of history. It should 



224 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

be remembered that there are subjects which sisters 
cannot teach honestly or consistently with their 
religious belief. A child educated in a convent school 
will not be taught the Bible, except in little historical 
extracts. Not only this, but it will be taught the Ten 
Commandments in an abridged form, in which all refer- 
ence to image worship is carefully omitted. No child 
will be allowed to know that Rome has seen fit to 
remove from the writings of the Fathers passages 
which tell against her modern creed. But this is not 
all. Even history as it is will not be taught, but altered 
to suit the claims of this ''infallible" Church. Truly 
those Protestants who send their children to receive 
such an education have a grave account to give to God 
of their stewardship. 

I could fill not one, but several volumes if I quoted 
all the condemnations which Roman Catholic editors 
of papers, and other Romanists have pronounced on 
their own schools. Now and then the truth comes 
out, and when it does appear it is worth hearing. 
It is not long since the Roman Catholic FreemarHs 
Journalf of New York, published a scathing article on 
the tricks which sisters play on the children in the 
matter of giving prizes. I have heard again and again 
the very same complaints made by parents and children. 
Prizes are given to those* who pay best, and whose 
influence is of most value in the schools. What an 
example for children ! As to the class-books used in 
Roman Catholic schools, we need not go beyond the 
condemnation of them pronounced in a very recent 
number of the same paper. In an article headed '' A 
Convention of Catholic Teachers," the writer says : — 

"The manufacture and sale of Catholic text-books. 



CONVENT LIFE. 225 



since it has grown to an enormous business, has been 
almost as fruitful of scandalous jobs as has that of text- 
books for the public schools. Parochial schools in 
different localities, and in charge of different teaching 
bodies, have long been open to bid for a supply of text- 
books. A dozen rival publishers compete. One cuts 
out another by offering the lowest terms for the intro- 
duction of his series. For twelve successive years 
each publisher takes his turn in the cut-throat introduc- 
tion rates, which are sometimes less than half the 
regular rates, and often below the cost of well-made 
books. Parents are surprised that their children have 
to change their books every year for others that seem 
about the same, but they do not understand that the 
teachers change in order to make the large profits on 
introduction prices." 

The teachers who thus deliberately defraud the poor, 
are '^ sisters," " brothers," and '' priests." 

The millions of dollars thus unnecessarily extorted 
from the poor Roman Catholic parents of America are 
not the worst evils of this method. The continual 
change of text-books clouds and confuses the minds 
of the children, who are kept .perpetually going over 
the same grounds of knowledge, by different and often 
opposite methods. No real training of the intellect 
can be secured in this way. But a deeper evil has 
grown out of this system. " So sharp," says this 
Roman Catholic newspaper, " has this competition 
become at times, and so careless have teachers grown 
over everything except the prices, that certain pub- 
lishers have actually foisted off editions of school 
books purporting to be Catholic, but really printed 
from the discarded plates of venomous anti-catholic 

15 



226 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

text-books, which the pubHshers bought cheap in the 
junk shops. Some of these pubHshers made a pretext 
of altering these plates, but others deemed it best not 
to go even to that poor expense." 

If a Protestant paper had exposed the worthlessness 
of Roman Catholic education and books as this Roman 
Catholic paper has done, and the system of deceit and 
trickery which is here recorded, what an outcry there 
would have been. And it is probable that the tren- 
chant article I have just quoted, true as it is, would 
never have been written if the editor of the paper in 
which it appeared had not some personal object to 
serve. Now and then the truth comes out as to the 
inside workings of the Roman Church, but whenever 
light is let in we may be sure that there is a motive 
for it, and that it is done by some one with whom 
it is not safe for the higher ecclesiastical powers to 
interfere. My Autobiography shows how badly I was 
treated by Roman Catholic publishers, and how they 
were perfectly safe in doing it, as they had the Arch- 
bishop of Dublin to protect them. And this is the 
system which the public is asked to support in place 
of the public schools, which are open to public inspec- 
tion. No matter what Roman Catholic schools may 
teach, or how they may teach, no one dare interfere 
unless the bishop chooses to give him permission to do 
so ; and he often finds very golden reasons for silence 
besides the general Roman Catholic indifference to 
education. 

The following extracts from another Roman Catholic 
paper will prove the truth of what I have stated here, 
and will also show that the alleged harmony in the 
Roman Church is not so perfect as its advocates try to 
make the world suppose. 



CONVENT LIFE. 227 

" O'Shea's books are literally taken from the 
Montreal (Lavelle) books. And the editor of the 
Freeman's Journal might have taken the trouble ot 
finding this out before taking a brief to defend them. 
It is very suspicious to see an editor palpably fighting 
for a class of publishers whose v\^orks are notoriously 
the dearest and the poorest in the market. Has the 
question of advertising anything to do with it ? Most 
of the school books printed by Catholic publishers are 
made from old plates. 

" As to the question of advertising, any journalistic 
expert will inform our Philadelphia correspondent that 
more advertising can be secured from non-Catholic 
publishing houses than from Catholic ones. And the 
resources of the non-Catholic houses are so great that 
they can well afibrd to advertise liberally at all times. 
If the FreematHs Journal allowed considerations ot 
advertising to influence its editorial opinions it would 
be foolish to antagonise the secular publishers of school 
books. • It needs no elaborate argument to prove this. 

** The field of the Catholic pubHsher of school books 
is very limited. Hitherto it was more limited. While 
the secular publisher has had the magnificent patronage 
of the pubhc school boards to depend on, the Catholic 
publisher has had to compete with him in the quality of 
his text-books, and at the same time to look entirely to 
the parochial schools for support. It is only of late 
that the secular publishers, the 'syndicate' publishers 
who control the public school book trade, have con- 
sidered it worth their while to turn their attention 
towards the Catholic schools. But it has become 
worth their while, and from the letters of protest we 
have received we judge that it has become ver}- much 
worth their while." 



228 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Catholics, especially in England, are given on occa- 
sion to loud talking about " Catholic literature." Most 
assuredly if it were not for the efforts of a few perverts 
" Catholic literature/' even such as it is, would not be 
known to the public. Now and then an article of average 
merit finds its way into a Roman Catholic magazine ; 
but I shall let Romanists themselves tell the tale of 
the failure of their Church in this matter, as well as in 
education. With Lady G. Fullerton (a pervert) began 
and ended the last attempt at Roman CathoHc works 
of fiction. 

The one and openly avowed object of the Roman 
Catholic Church is to secure the absolute control of the 
education of the young. The question is one of such 
supreme importance that it is almost impossible to say 
too much on this subject. What do Romanists propose 
to teach the young ? We have seen what they will 
not allow them to be taught. Let us say once more, 
the rising generation must not be taught the Bible, 
lest it should make them wise unto salvation according 
to Jesus Christ; lest the reading of it should show 
them the impossibility of salvation through the saints 
and angels. The young must learn the Ten Com- 
mandments according to the abridged editions of the 
" Church, and they must not know that one of the 
Ten Commandments given by God forbids the making 
of images or of any graven thing for purposes of 
worship. The rising generation, above all, must not 
be allowed to read history according to fact ; they must 
learn it according to Rome, which is quite a different 
matter. 

" The education of the people," exclaimed the 
Cardinal Archbishop of Malines recently, in the course 
of a public address, " is the field upon which will take 



CONVENT LIFE. 229 



place the mighty struggle between error and truth, 
between good and evil." 

In Austria, after twenty years of a modified form of 
so-called "liberal education," the exigencies of parlia- 
mentarism have necessitated within the past few weeks 
a partial, if not complete, restoration of the supremacy 
of the Church in all matters pertaining to education. 
The leaders of the clerical faction, including Prince 
Aloys Liechtenstein and others, took advantage of the 
autonomous and home-rule aspirations of the various 
nationalist groups in the Austrian Parliament to pur- 
chase their support in all educational and ecclesiastical 
matters by promises of assistance in their struggle for 
national autonomy ; and thus Count Taafe's Cabinet 
has been forced to yield, and to perpetuate a retrograde 
movement, which cannot fail to exercise a disastrous 
effect on the complicated fortunes of Austria. The 
new law revives all the former compulsory religious 
instruction, and provides that the same shall be im- 
parted by priests, whose authority over the pupils shall 
be equal, if not superior, to that of the masters. School 
inspectors are no longer to be chosen from among the 
professors, but from among the clergy, who obtain 
almost the complete control over the public schools in 
villages and small towns. Moreover, communal schools 
are to be closed wherever the Church schools are 
deemed sufficient for the local needs. This of course 
involves the abolition of a number of national schools, 
and will result in the multiplication of those of a pro- 
fessional nature. 

A writer in the New York Times says : — 
*' Within the past three months the synod of Catholic 
Archbishops and Bishops of the kingdom of Bavaria 
have drawn up and presented to the Royal Government 



230 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

a kind of ultimatum, embodying the following conces- 
sions, to which they claim that the Church is entitled 
under the terms of the Concordat of i8i8. In the 
first place, they insist that all Government supervision 
of the religious and doctrinal instruction in educational 
institutions should at once cease ; second, that the 
^ simultanschule,' or schools for children of non- 
Catholic parents in which all doctrinal instruction is 
avoided, should be immediately abolished ; third, that 
Freemasons and 'enemies of Christianism,' ergo 
heretics, should be legally disqualified, and debarred 
from teaching in any public or private schools, colleges, 
or universities ; fourth, that all normal and primary 
schools in the kingdom, and all public libraries, should 
be subjected to the absolute and exclusive control of 
the clergy ; fifth, that the supervision and control of all 
doctrinal and theological instruction in the national 
universities be confided to the Catholic episcopacy ; 
sixth, that the Government refuse any longer its 
official recognition of the sect known as ' Old Catho- 
lics ; ' and lastly, that the internal administration of 
the Church in Bavaria, as well as its teachings 
and doctrines, be entirely freed from all further inter- 
ference, supervision, and control on the part of the 
Government. 

'' Now although Prime Minister Von Lutz failed at 
the time to return an altogether satisfactory response 
to these demands, yet it must be borne in mind that his 
hesitation and reluctance to comply therewith will be 
speedily overruled. For not only are his relations with 
the Prince Regent, who is an exceedingly devout 
Catholic, much strained, but moreover, he is confronted 
in Parliament by an overwhelming Ultramontane 
majority. Indeed, his continued presence at the head 



CONVENT LIFE. 231 



of the Administration, in view of the fact that his 
adherents form an insignificant minority in the Chamber, 
is not only entirely unconstitutional, but is a direct 
violation of the terms of the Magna Charta of the 
kingdom. Moreover, it is well to bear in mind the fact 
that of the 5,500,000 inhabitants of Bavaria at least 
4,250,000 are bigoted Catholics. Under the circum- 
stances, therefore, the prospects of the early realisation 
of the demands of the Bavarian bishops may be said to 
be assured." 

I have drawn particular attention to the above- 
mentioned ultimatum of the Bavarian episcopacy for 
the reason that it displays, in all its brutal nudity, the 
goal and object which the Papacy is striving to attain 
in every country in the world. In some portions of 
Europe these demands are more diplomatically veiled 
than at Munich, but the ulterior aim is always the 
same. 

And lest any doubt should remain as to the fact that 
they originate directly from the Vatican, and represent 
the views of the Papacy, it may be of advantage to add 
that Leo XIII., in a papal brief dated April 29th, 1889, 
and addressed to the Bavarian Primate Archbishop of 
Munich, explicitly indorses every one of the demands 
put forward by the prelates in question. Nay, the 
Pope even goes beyond them, and declares that the 
commands and instructions issued by the Pontiff or 
his representatives are entitled to the most unquestion- 
ing and blind obedience on the part of all Catholics, 
even in cases where they happen to have failed 
to receive the sanction of the Government of the 
land. The Pope further claims that the behests and 
commands of the Vatican, not only in spiritual but 



232 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

also in temporal matters, must be obeyed to the letter, 
even if they happen to be in contradiction to the 
laws of the land. '* The Divine doctrine founded by 
our Saviour/' says the Pontiff in his brief, '^ provides 
for the preference of the decisions of the Church, 
over and above the prescriptions of the civil power 
and law. If that were not the case the fundamental 
laws governing humanity would be exposed to disas- 
trous modification by each individual man, monarch, or 
Government." 

The Pontiff therefore explicitly exacts that the laws 
enacted by the Curia of Italian prelates at Rome should 
be preferred, by all good Catholics, to the laws of the 
land to which they may happen to belong. Patriotism 
and the duties of citizenship are expected to take a back 
seat wherever the Church is concerned. 

There is a subject in connection with convents which 
I would have thankfully passed by if I had not felt it a 
sacred duty, to write of it here. I am frequently asked 
if there is immorality in convents, and I know that I 
have suffered considerably in public estimation from 
certain persons by my denial. I must add, too, as a 
specimen of the usual uncharitable style of Roman 
Catholic papers, that a third — or I might say a twenty- 
third-rate Roman Catholic paper, which receives the 
approbation of the Romanist Bishop of London, Ont., 
far from appreciating my truthfulness in this matter, 
merely notices it with a sneer, saying that I would come 
to that later. 

There is no such thing as honour, conscience, or 
refined feeling in the Roman Catholic Church. I should 
rather say there is no Christianity. There may be a 
veneer of something which will pass for it with the 



CONVENT LIFE. 233 



unthinking and the uneducated, two classes who are 
the chief support of Rome ; but when the touchstone 
of the supposed interests of the Church is appHed, 
coarseness and brutaUty reign supreme. As for myself, 
it has long ceased to be a matter of the slightest concern 
to me whether I have had blame or praise from any 
one. My mission is to speak truth as I know it, and 
that done, it matters little who blames or praises. The 
coarseness and rage with which Romanists attack every 
one who leaves their communion is one of the many 
proofs which exist of its utterly unchristian character. 
There is no grief for the supposed loss to the person's 
soul. All is simply rage because there is another 
evidence that Rome cannot keep her hold on every 
one who enters her pale. 

There are, I regret to say, some Protestants who 
do not appreciate statements of fact as they should, 
and are disappointed when they do not find sensation. 
For such I do not write. I speak of facts as I know 
them. As for the facts of others I have had no oppor- 
tunity of investigating them. I say nothing for or 
against them. There will be always some few persons 
who seem to be — if I may say so — born frauds, and 
Protestants should be on their guard against them. 
There are also persons who never have been Romanists, 
and who must necessarily take their facts second-hand. 
No doubt such persons are honest in their desire to 
spread the Light of Truth, but when there are two 
persons to give evidence, one who has been for many 
years a member of the Roman Church, as either a priest 
or a sister, most assuredly it is the part of wisdom to 
give the most credit to their statements. Further, there 
are, and always will be, adventurers whose sole object 
is to make a living out of disclosures. Such persons 



234 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

should not be accepted without very careful investiga- 
tion. I have found a case of this kind lately. 

A woman, who had been an inmate of a Roman 
Catholic refuge for fallen women in England, actually 
represented herself as the daughter of a distinguished 
Roman Catholic family, described her magnificent 
dresses, her jewels, her high life, and last, not least, 
declared that she had escaped from a convent in 
England. Her whole story from end to end was a lie. 
She was simply a very clever adventuress. When I 
read this woman's statements, having so many years' 
experience with sisters and nuns, I saw at once that 
she had never been a sister or an inmate of a convent, 
except as a fallen woman. But it was in vain that I 
pointed out this to those whom she had deceived, and 
I got very little thanks for speaking. 

I had opportunity afterwards of ascertaining that 
everything which I suspected was exactly what had 
happened. The woman averted suspicion by her 
cautious way of writing of the sisters. All she wanted 
was the advantage of appearing before the public, at 
a time of great excitement, as a person of a distinguished 
family, w^ho had made immense sacrifices for religion. 
Her persistent refusal to tell where she came from 
should at once have awakened the suspicion of those 
whom she so cleverly deceived. I dwell on her case 
because Protestants cannot overestimate the importance 
of ascertaining who such people are. The injury which 
they do to true religion is difficult to undo. I have 
given a full account in my Autobiography of how I was 
deceived myself by a Roman Catholic, who pretended 
she was a Protestant, and obtained entrance to and 
help from many convents, on the plea of wanting to 
change her religion. 



CONVENT LIFE. 235 



Another and a very serious evil which arises from 
taking up persons of this class is that it is a great 
triumph to Rome. Rome will have more to say about 
one adventurer than about a hundred honest men or 
women who have left the Church. Such persons, too, 
cannot but feel deeply discouraged when they see 
adventurers preferred to them ; and it is a still greater 
and more serious discouragement to those who are yet 
in the Church of Rome and wish to leave it. All this 
trouble could be saved so easily if Protestants would 
insist on knowing the previous history of those who 
come to them from the Church of Rome. There cannot 
be any reason for concealment. Any one who comes 
before the public has a right to satisfy the public as 
to his or her identity. Excuses are simply cloaks to 
shield fraud, and should never be accepted. No possible 
injury could be done to a sister or convert from the 
Church of Rome, or to her friends, by her name being 
known, or the name of the convent from which she 
came. The only case in which concealment might be 
necessary would be in the case of a person inquiring 
who had not decided to leave the Church of Rome. 
In such a case the greatest secrecy might be necessary ; 
but this would be only a form of prudence, which is a 
very different thing from the secrecy of fraud. 

It is indeed lamentable when the fact of being 
deceived by such persons leads to coldness or indifference 
towards sincere converts. For such as these Protestants 
cannot do too much. They have trials and sufferings 
which an adventuress never knows. 

It is with great regret I am obliged to say that, al- 
though I have no personal knowledge of immorality in 
convents, I do not question for one moment the statements 
which have been made by others on this subject. It 



236 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

must be remembered that Rome does what she dares. 
It should never be forgotten that her principles never 
change, and that her practice is modified to suit all 
circumstances. In countries where Rome is safe from 
the open light of public opinion her dark deeds are 
done. It is terrible to have to say such things of a 
Church which calls herself Christian, but history, and 
history written by Romanists, gives but too positive 
proofs of her evil deeds. 

With regard to Maria Monk's much-talked-of book, 
it was written many years since, when Romanism in 
Canada was free to do as Rome pleased. What Maria 
Monk has alleged against the sisters in Montreal is 
simply what Roman Catholic historians admit to have 
been a common practice in the Middle Ages, and even 
later. It will be remembered that Gerson, the great 
Roman Catholic divine and theologian of the fourteenth 
century, declared that concubinage was a necessary 
evil, as it might prevent greater evils. For full and 
reliable information on this and other subjects Mr. 
Lea's work ''History of Sacerdotal Celibacy," is in- 
valuable. The Franciscans had their " Marthas," and 
were condemned by a Council held in Magdeburg 
(1403) for their dissolute Hves. So general was the 
evil that the Franciscans attacked the Carmelites for 
betraying women. It is not to be supposed that when 
such was the state of the priesthood women conse- 
crated to God should escape pollution. 

"There is no injustice," says Mr. Lea, ''in holding 
the Church responsible for the lax morality of the 
laity. It had assumed the right to regulate the con- 
sciences of men, and to make them account for every 
action and even for every thought. When it promptly 



CONVENT LIFE. 237 



caused the burning of those who ventured on any 
dissidence in doctrinal opinion or in matters of pure 
speculation, it could not plead lack of authority to 
control them in practical virtue. Its machinery was 
all-pervading, and its power autocratic. It had taught 
that the priest was to be venerated as the representative 
of God, and that his commands were to be implicitly 
obeyed. It had armed him with the fearful weapon 
of the confessional, and by authorising him to grant 
absolution and to pronounce excommunication, it had 
delegated to him the keys of heaven and hell. By 
removing him from the jurisdiction of the secular 
courts, it had proclaimed him as superior to all tem- 
poral authority. Through ages of faith the populations 
had humbly received these teachings, and bowed to 
these assumptions, until they entered into the texture 
of the daily life of every man. While thus grasping 
supremacy, and using it to the utmost possibility of 
worldly advantage, the Church therefore could not 
absolve itself from the responsibilities inseparably con- 
nected with power; and chief among these responsi- 
bilities is to be numbered the moral training of the 
nations thus subjected to its will" (p. 355, 2nd ed.). 

When the Church had unrestrained power in the 
world, and used it so persistently for evil, how much 
more power had it in the cloister, and how much easier 
was it to use it there for the worst purposes ? The 
crime was not for a priest to be unchaste, but for him to 
marry. For centuries of the Church's history there is 
evidence which no sane man can deny, that the lives of 
the priests were a scandal to the whole world, and 
that the lives of the sisters were little better. In a 
Bull of Alexander IV. (1259) he declares that the 



238 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

people were corrupted by the priests, instead of being 
reformed by them. In 742 such was the corruption of 
nuns that enactments were made by Pope Zachary for 
their punishment, when found guilty of adultery with 
priests. In 125 1 in England the Bishop of Lincoln 
made enactments to test the virtue of nuns, of such a 
degrading character that I cannot repeat them here. The 
licentiousness of nunneries must have been fearful to 
have compelled a bishop to use such drastic measures. 

And it may here be observed, in connection with the 
license lately given to the Duke of Aosta, by the present 
Pope, to commit incest for the sum of fifty thousand 
dollars, that the writers of the political and other ballads 
of the day allude severely to the ^' making and unmaking 
of matrimony " for money, which seems to have been 
the unvarying custom of the Roman Church for cen- 
turies. In IIOI Paschal II. was obliged to send an 
epistle to the ecclesiastical authorities in Spain on the 
subject of the cohabitation of priests and nuns. In 1394 
a petition was presented to the English Parliament for 
the reform of the Church, and especially for the reform 
of nuns. In 1536 an effort was actually made by a 
commission of Cardinals to abolish the whole monastic 
system, such was the scandalous state of convents and 
nunneries. A work was published called '' The Consilium 
de emendanda ecclesia." One of the ecclesiastics con- 
cerned in this good work was subsequently raised to 
the papal throne as Paul IV. But instead of carrying 
out the work which he had inaugurated before his eleva- 
tion he quietly placed this book on the Index. Perhaps 
there has seldom been a clearer evidence of the character 
and aim of '' infallible " Popes. 

One thing is certain, that while "heresy" was 
punished with death, torture, and all the penalties which 



CONVENT LIFE. 239 



the cruelty of the human heart could devise, there was 
but very slight punishment for the open sins of priests 
and nuns. I shall only say here that so serious was 
the corruption of the spouses of Christ at this period, 
that numberless cases are reported by Llorente, the 
Roman Catholic historian of the Inquisition. He says 
the children of nuns and priests were openly acknow- 
ledged by their parents, if not without shame, at least 
without serious reproof. In Provence the scandal was 
open and horrible. In England Dr. Geddes, a Roman 
Catholic priest, who wrote and published, at the com- 
mencement of the present century, a book advocating 
the celibacy of the clergy, was suspended for this, and 
for publishing a new translation of the Bible. With 
two more quotations from Mr. Lea's work I close this 
painful subject. 

" When the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany under- 
took to reform the monasteries of his dominions, and to 
put an end, if possible, to the abuse of the confessional, 
it led to a long diplomatic correspondence with the papal 
curia as to the jurisdiction over such cases. A public 
document of the year 1763 had already stated that the 
special crime in question had become less frequent, and 
attributed this improvement to the exceeding laxity of 
morals everywhere present, for few confessors could be 
£0 foolish as to attempt seduction in the confessional, 
when there was so little risk in doing the same thing 
elsewhere. Specious as this reasoning might seem, the 
facts on which it was based were hardly borne out by 
the investigations of Leopold shortly after into the 
morals of the monastic establishments. Nothing more 
scandalous is to be found in the visitations of the religious 
houses of England, under Morton and Cromwell. The 



240 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

spiritual directors of the nunneries had converted them 
virtually into harems ; and such of the sisters as were 
proof against seduction, armed with the powers of con- 
fession and absolution, suffered every species of perse- 
cution. It was rare for them to venture on complaint, 
but when they did so they received no attention from 
their ecclesiastical superiors, and only the protection of 
the grand-ducal authority at length emboldened them 
to reveal the truth, r The prioress of S. Caterina di 
Pistoia declared that, with three or four exceptions, all 
the monks and confessors whom she had met in her long 
career were alike ; that they treated the nuns as wives, 
and taught them that God had made man for woman 
and woman for man ; and that the visitations of the 
bishops amounted to nought, even though they were 
aware of what occurred, for the mouths of the victims 
were sealed by the dread of excommunication threatened 
by their spiritual directors:> (When it is considered that 
the convents thus converted into dens of prostitution 
were the favourite schools to which the girls of the 
higher classes were sent for training and education, it 
can be readily imagined what were their moral influences, 
thence radiating throughout society at large ;^and we 
can appreciate the argument above referred to as to the 
ease with which the clergy could procure sexual indulg- 
ence without recourse to the confessional " (p. 586). 

" Rome itself was no better than its dependent 
provinces, despite the high personal character of some of 
the pontiffs. When the too early death of Clement XIV., 
in 1774, cut short the hopes which had been excited 
by his enlightened rule, St. Alphonso Liguori addressed 
to the conclave assembled for the election of his suc- 
cessor a letter urging them to make such a choice as 



CONVENT LIFE. 241 



would afford reasonable prospect of accomplishing the 
much-needed reform. The saint did not hesitate to 
characterise the discipline of the secular clergy as most 
grievously lax, and to proclaim that a general reform of 
the ecclesiastical body was the only way to remove the 
fearful corruption of the morals of the laity. <\ When we 
hear, about this time, of two Carmelite convents at Rome, 
one male and the other female, which had to be pulled 
down because underground passages had been esta- 
blished between them, by means of which the monks and 
nuns lived in indiscriminate licentiousness, and when 
we read the scandalous stories which were current in 
Roman society about prelates high in the Church, we 
can readily appreciate the denunciations of St. Alphonso.J 
A curious glimpse at the interior of conventual life is 
furnished by a manual for Inquisitors, written about 
this period by an official of the Holy Office of Rome. 
In a chapter on nuns he describes the scandals which 
often cause them to fall within the jurisdiction of the 
Inquisition, and prescribes the course to be pursued 
with regard to the several offences. Among those who 
were forced to take the veil, despair frequently led to 
the denial of God, of heaven, and of hell ; feminine 
enmity caused accusations of sorcery and witchcraft, 
which threw not only the nunneries, but whole cities, 
into confusion ; vain-glory of sanctity suggested pre- 
tended revelations and visions ; and these latter were 
also not infrequently caused by licentiousness ; for in 
these utterances were sometimes taught doctrines 
utterly subversive of morality, of which godless con- 
fessors took advantage to teach their spiritual daughters 
that there was no sin in sexual intercourse. As in 
Spain, it was the practice of the Roman Inquisition to 
treat the offenders mildly, partly in consideration of the 

16 



I 

/ 



242 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

temptations to which they were exposed, and partly to 
avoid scandal." (pp. 587, 588.) 

When such was the state of the " holy " Roman 
Catholic Church when she had full control, and had 
no Protestants to hinder her liberty of action, as she 
so often complains at the present day, why should 
narratives such as those of Maria Monk, and of Father 
Chiniquy, be questioned ? They only say what Rome 
herself has said, over and over again for centuries, in 
those feeble efforts to purify the Church which were 
made from time to time, when the state of its morals 
was such as to threaten its final dissolution. The 
book of Maria Monk was written many years since, 
when Rome had uncontrolled power in Canada. Such 
outrages on humanity, as she describes, would be 
impossible at the present day, and therefore would 
not be attempted ; but let Rome again attain the same 
power, and the same results will follow. 

( But Rome has not changed. The . case of Bruno, 
so recently before the public, should convince any 
one who does not wish to be deceived, or who does 
not deceive himself deliberately, that Rome has not 
changed. She would be immoral now as openly 
as she was for centuries, yes, and as openly as she 
is to-day in Mexico, if she did not fear public 
opinion .\ It is quite clear that if Rome can control 
American Protestant organisations like the Knights of 
Labour, and interfere in the government of nations, she 
could also, if she wished to do so, control and reform 
the morals of her own priests. When the bishop of 
a large diocese in the United States gives to the public 
such a horrible account of the demoralisation of his 
priests, as that which I have already quoted from the 



CONVENT LIFE. 243 



pen of Bishop Hogan, what must there be under the 
surface which will never be known until the day of 
doom ? When Cardinal Manning cannot keep all his 
priests from drink and immorality, what is the state of 
the Roman Church in England, with all its advantages ? 
And yet she boasts that she, and she alone, is the 
*'holy" Church; and in all ages and all times she 
has found men who are fools enough to take her at her 
own valuation. 

The superhuman skill with which Rome hides the 
iniquities of her priesthood is a matter of admiration 
for all men. She would have been wrecked long since 
by the sheer weight of her own vileness, if that vileness 
had not been hidden by threats of present and future 
penalties, hurled at those who wished to speak publiclv 
of her sins. Roman Catholic gentlemen in New York 
have been heard to relate tales of the vileness of the 
priests of their acquaintance which I could not record 
on these pages, and yet these gentlemen still remain in 
nominal communion with the Church of Rome. It suits 
their political interests to do so, and as for religion they 
have none. The rising generation of American Roman 
Catholic men are going in precisely the same path as 
the men of Italy, of France, of Spain, and of every 
country where the Roman Church has had unlimited 
power. They first learn to despise their ecclesiastics, 
who teach one thing and practise another. Then they 
learn to hate them, and revolt against all religious 
authority soon follows. Yet with these facts before their 
very eyes Protestants will do all they can to support a 
system with which those who know it best will have 
nothing to do. Was ever infatuation so fatal or so 
foolish ? 

I am well aware that it is not love for Rome which 



/ 



244 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

makes the American millionaire fall at the feet of the 
Cardinal of Baltimore, and the Archbishop of New York. 
They curse the necessity which obliges them to pay 
homage to these men, and, let me add, they imagine the 
necessity. The Roman Church poses before an easily 
gulled public as the guardian of law and order. The 
Pope says, '' I am the only person, and my religion is the 
} only religion, which will keep the king on his throne, or 

enable the rich man to hold his wealth secure ; " and the 
( king and the rich man, looking in these troubled times 

for a power which will protect them, turn to Rome, 
and Rome finds occasion to appear as if she, and she 
alone, could control the hungry multitude. *' See," she 
cries, ''how I have brought these troublesome Knights of 
Labour to my feet. You feared they would revolutionise 
labour, you feared they would wring from you some of 
that capital to which for the present I recognise your 
right, without making any curious inquiry as to how it 
has been accumulated. Trust to me, and I will protect 
you." But why does not the too confiding millionaire 
and the anxious statesman ask, Why have you not suc- 
ceeded in your own country ? Why has your power 
been overthrown wherever you had temporal rule ? 
Why do you not control the assassination societies in 
your own Church ? Why do you not pacify Ireland ? 
No ; the shallow politician, and the unscrupulous poli- 
tician, and the selfish millionaire grasp at the present 
good, and care little for the future evil. " After me the 
deluge. If I can hold my own now let the future take 
care of itself" And how the future will take care of 
itself let the past history of the effects of Roman rule 
tell. 

If there is no prostitution in convents to-day, let it be 
remembered that it is so because a strong public opinion 



CONVENT LIFE. 245 



will not allow it in countries where Rome has not yet 
all the power she so ardently desires. I know how a 
Romanist shrinks with horror from the very idea of the 
spouses of Christ being even named with outcasts, but 
sentiment will not alter fact. There is too much 
historical evidence that the spouses of Christ could fall, 
as well as others of their own sex. No matter what we 
may feel or how we may shrink with horror, the facts 
remain, and our true wisdom is to prevent the recur- 
rence of evils which are so terrible. When Rome 
not only tolerated but encouraged the concubinage of 
priests rather than allow them to enter upon the sacred 
ties of marriage, what may she not have allowed in the 
cloister ? 

For myself, no one could have heard of such narratives 
as that of Maria Monk with greater horror than I did. 
No one could have expressed greater indignation, or a 
more burning desire of vengeance on those whom I 
supposed had lied deliberately. I lived many years of 
my life with sisters who were as good and as pure 
as women could be, as far as their moral character is 
concerned. Naturally I believed that all the spouses of 
Christ were alike. As for priests, I believed that they 
were as near angels as mortal men could be. I was as 
indignant as the most devoted Romanists if I heard 
the least aspersion on the character of a priest. I had 
under my very eyes a case of the most lamentable 
depravity on the part of a priest ; but so imbued was I 
with the idea that it was not possible for a priest to 
sin, that I did not see what, if I had been less sus- 
picious, I certainly should have seen. It was not till I 
found not only that priests could ruin girls, but that 
very little was thought of it when they did so, that my 
eyes were opened. 



246 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

I saw enough to open my eyes to the possibility of 
evil in convent life if I had even the least suspicion that 
such a thing v^as possible. I believe that the shock 
which is given to sensitive and spiritual minds when 
they find that there is evil, or when anything comes 
before them which even hints at it, is one cause why 
evil is so easily perpetuated. The power of the con- 
fessional is another great protection to the evildoer. 
If any Roman Catholic sees, or knows, of evil done by 
a priest or a sister, they are in duty bound to speak of it 
in the confessional, and here at once all further mention 
of it will be forbidden. However priests may abuse 
each other in private, they are at least loyal in protecting 
each other's — shall I say characters, or sins, in public ? 
If, for example, I had mentioned in the confessional, as 
I ought to have done, that I had seen a sister and a priest 
in an improper position in a certain Irish convent, I 
would have had a more miserable life than I had, which 
is saying a good deal. It would have been the part of 
common charity and common prudence to have warned 
the sisters that this priest was a drunkard, a class with 
whom no woman is ever safe, yet for many reasons he 
was the very last person whom I would have ever 
suspected of drink, though others knew his real 
character. 

I remember the late Dr. Moriarty, when Bishop of 
Kerry, talking to me one day of the strange " fancies " 
which sisters sometimes took, and telling me that a 
sister in one of his convents told him every time he 
came that the priests and the Rev. Mother were too 
familiar. I felt annoyed at his telling me this, as all 
Roman Catholics feel when they hear anything against 
their Church, and not the less so because he always 
seemed to think it was a good joke. While I was in 



CONVENT LIFE. 247 



Kenmare the superioress of a large French religious 
order in Texas came there several times to look for 
young girls to go out with her as sisters. The way I 
was sought and visited there I know was one cause ot 
my many troubles, for it excited the jealousy of the 
sisters, and especially of those who were natives of 
Kenmare, who, with one exception, were of that low and 
ignorant class who cannot bear to see any one noticed 
except themselves, and who have not sufficient intellect — 
shall I say common sense ? — to appreciate the possibility 
of another having what God has not given them. This 
superioress told me stories of drunken priests which 
horrified me, and of the trouble she had with priests 
and sisters. I could not disbelieve her, .but it was the 
first revelation to me of what I learned later was but 
too common in religious houses or convents where the 
Church of Rome is free from Protestant observ^ation. 
Later I learned that the further Rome gets from an 
open Bible the greater danger there is. Texas is not 
far from Mexico. In the remote and western States of 
America, as in Mexico, priests will live lives which they 
dare not live in the States, where public sentiment is to 
some degree controlled by Protestant opinion. 



CHAPTER XL 

''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM:' 

"Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree 
bringeth forth evil fruit." — Matt, vii, 17. 

WE have shown in the last chapter, on the undeni- 
able evidence of the Roman Catholic editor of 
the New York Freeman^ s Journal, that sisters, to get 
a little money, deliberately deprive their pupils of the 
educational advantages which they are in duty bound 
to give them. If such a charge had been made against 
convent schools by Protestants it would be indignantly 
denied, and would be attributed to Protestant malice 
and bigotry. But this is not all. The editor says that 
the Roman Catholic poor, who can so ill afford it, are 
deprived yearly of '' millions of dollars." But yet even 
this is not all. The same paper has the most caustic 
and cutting attack on the morality of the sisters, in the 
matter of their distribution of prizes. Nor can this 
be considered as of small moment. Only those who 
have been familiar for many years with convent schools 
and their workings can form an idea of the terrible 
shock which is given to the moral perceptions of 
children by any failure of justice on the part of those 
whom they are taught to revere so highly. 

Let it be remembered that the children are taught to 
look up to the sisters as something superhuman, that 



BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEAir 249 

the eyes and ears of these little ones are sharp, and 
criticising, though unconsciously to themselves, and that 
a defect, much more a serious fault, in a sister, is to 
them a terrible crime, and makes an indelible impres- 
sion. I can quite endorse the criticism of the editor of 
the Freeman^ s Journal, but if I had accused sisters of 
the gross injustice as well as of the deliberate fraud 
of which he accuses them, it would be at once denied, 
and attributed to every motive but the true one. Here 
is what this Roman Catholic gentleman says of the 
way in which sisters' schools are conducted. The 
article is headed " The Reverse of the Medal." 

^' The medal nuisance reigns merrily in these days. 
Medals may be good for boys. They are very bad for 
girls and worse for girls' mothers. The heartburnings, 
the envy, the anger, the rash judgment evoked by 
these little bits of gilded metal leave traces for many 
years. Schools are injured by the competition for 
medals, friends separated, and priests and religious' 
accused of all sorts of meanness in the height of the 
medal season. 

" If Mary Scholastica Jones is to have the medal for 
useless industry, a branch very much affected in some 
schools, Mary Angela Smith's mother puts on her war 
paint. The Joneses ! Everybody knows how old 
Jones made his money. And there are things about 
the Joneses that she could tell. As for Sister Mary 
Paul; who was obliged, poor woman, to invent a new 
study in order to give a new medal, it's as clear as 
da34ight that if her mother wasn't a fourth cousin of 
Mary Jones' stepmother that medal would never have 
gone where it went. It is hinted, too, that if the 
Joneses had not given an extra donation to the organ 



250 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

fund the medal for useless industry would have adorned 
the deserving neck of Mary Angela Smith. 

'^ The recent tribulations of some good religious in a 
neighbouring town will illustrate the troubles of those 
who give medals. They were to have a drama played 
by the elite of their classes. Intense excitement. 
White frocks. Curtain ready to rise. Good sisters 
charmed with the rehearsal of the Long Lost Child, 
who was also to be the Violet in an afterpiece, sing a 
French song later on, and play the Boulanger March 
(six hands) at the end. Applause on the other side 
of the curtain. But where is the Long Lost Child? 
She appears with her mother, who announces that 
there shall be no Long Lost Child that night if her 
Jane is not to get a medal. Then follow three other 
mothers with three other children, who have just dis- 
covered that they are to have no medals. The drama 
cannot possibly go on without these three, because one 
is Queen Esther, the other is a Hebrew Shepherd, and 
the third a Gipsy Maiden ; and besides, they are 
down for 'Silvery Waves' on the programme. The 
consequence is that the curtain stays down. There is 
no drama, and four mothers return swearing vengeance 
against the school, and fiUing the air with taunts and 
insinuations." 

Now it is certain that the mothers in question were 
also educated at convent schools, and this is the fruit 
of such training. 

A novel was published some years since, in which 
the absurdities and the frauds of convent education 
were thoroughly exposed ; and any one who knows 
anything personally of convents knows that '* Hogan 
M.P." was true to the life. I have myself seen the 



"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEMr 251 

bitterest jealousy and heartburning which has followed 
a public exhibition in English and Irish convent 
schools, and in the " commencements " in the United 
States, so graphically described in the above extract. 
What do the children think of the conduct of sisters 
who can stoop, and do stoop, to the meanest devices 
to gain the good word of the rich ? 

I heard the following account from the very lips of 
the sister concerned. The " Ladies of the Sacred 
Heart " (a curious name for those who take for their 
patron the lowly heart of Jesus) concern themselves 
very little with the poor. Their work is all for the 
rich ; and it simply deprives the respectable and 
struggling Roman Catholic girl of one chance of earning 
her living. Roman Catholic girls have no chance of 
earning their bread by teaching except in poor schools ; 
and even in these they are anticipated by sisters. The 
extent to which the sisters deprive both the Protestant 
and Roman Catholic working classes of a means of 
living is a subject which has never received the con- 
sideration it deserves. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart, 
however, have generally a few poor children in a 
separate school, to make some little show of care for the 
poor. The lady of whom I have spoken had charge 
of these children. On one occasion the Rev. Mother's 
Feast day came round, and of course she ought to 
receive a costly present. This system of making 
presents to superiors is one which is obviously a source 
of such heartburnings that in my own case I posi- 
tively forbade it. The custom, hov/ever, is general. It 
happened that the young ladies of this school had been 
so heavily taxed for gifts and donations, that they 
were known to be absolutely penniless. The sister 
w^ho had to collect the money for the present was in a 



252 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

sad dilemma. Just as it is considered an act of " dis- 
loyalty to the Church " when a priest fails to subscribe 
to a testimonial to a bishop, for whom he may have no 
real regard, so it is considered " disrespect" for a sister to 
fail in the accustomed marks of attention to a superior. 

The money had to be got somehow, so the sister 
went to the sister who told me the fact, and said she 
must get the money from the poor children. The 
sister to whom this command was given had been 
a member of the order for many years, and had made 
her final vows, but she had not lost all heart and con- 
science. She positively refused to do this act of 
injustice, and declared that the poor children needed the 
money far more than the Rev. Mother, or any one else in 
the order. As these same sisters have recently refused 
four hundred thousand dollars for a small plot of land 
near New York which they own, some idea of their 
enormous wealth may be formed. This seems to have 
been the last drop in the cup offered to this sister. 
She had again and again been required to do things 
which she felt were against her conscience, and un- 
happily, or happily for herself, she could not invariably 
practise the " blind obedience " which is required from 
religious. The end was that she left the order, and 
is now living at home, though she still belongs to the 
Roman Catholic Church. 

There were annual examinations held while I was in 
Kenmare, at which a much-edified but very ignorant 
public were surprised by the ready way in which the 
children answered questions which were, apparently, 
put to them for the first time at these examinations. 
This farce was, and I suppose is still, solemnly played 
out. The questions were all carefully prepared some 
time before the examinations, and the answers were 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM:' 253 

also written out. The teacher asked the questions 
extemporaneously, and the children answered the ques- 
tions, which they had been taught with much pains 
and labour, to all appearance in the same extempo- 
raneous manner. On one occasion I was sitting next 
to the late Dr. Morriarty, their bishop. I saw that he 
was impressed, and I asked him what he was thinking 
of. He replied, " I am marvelling at the memory of 
that girl who is asking the questions." I knew then 
that the bishop at least was not imposed upon. 

One must have lived in a convent to know all the 
little and the great frauds practised therein in the name 
of religion ; and the worst evil is that it is made a sin 
not to do this evil, or even to condemn it. 

A young lady, belonging to the upper '' four hun- 
dred," who had been for a short time at one of the 
convents of the Sacred Heart, told me the following story. 
Here, if anywhere, we might suppose that humility 
would reign supreme ; but this is far from being the 
case. The young ladies who are educated in these con- 
vents are the daughters of very wealthy parents, and 
are treated accordingly, and distinctions are made which 
produce incessant jealousy. This young lady told me 
she got into considerable trouble, and was eventually 
removed, at the request of the nuns, for asking questions 
when she should have held her tongue. One of her 
questions was sufficiently amusing. She had been 
told that whenever she met a sister she should make 
a profound bow to her, and stand on one side until the 
sister passed. She asked why this was required, and 
was told it was not intended to pay any homage to the 
sister, but that it was a reverence to the guardian angel 
of the sister. 

One of the strange anomahes of convent life is the 



254 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

existence of a class called '^ lay " sisters. These 
sisters are treated as inferior beings, and yet, according 
to the teaching of the Roman Church, they are as 
much spouses of Christ as the choir sisters, and 
should hold just the same rank. I may add that I had 
such a strong feeling as to the incongruity of the lay 
sister element in convents, that I decided not to have 
lay sisters in my own institutions, and therefore we 
were all equal. In America the idea of a '' lay " 
sister is quite contrary to the spirit of the Republic. 
The young lady I have just mentioned thought that 
the lay sister should be treated the same as the other 
sisters, and acted accordingly in perfect good faith. 
But she w^as told that this was not right, that, on the 
contrary, the lay sisters should step aside for her, 
and bow to her when she passed. The girl asked if 
the lay sister had not a guardian angel also, and with 
the result that for this and other inconvenient inquiries, 
she was sent home as one likely to corrupt the morals 
of her companions. 

1 have seen the lives of some of the best sisters in 
Kenmare made perfectly miserable by the petty jealousy 
of others who were their inferiors in virtue, and in 
education. As the superioress was an uneducated 
person, she was entirely at the mercy of the sisters who 
understood the national system of education, and every 
one had to suffer in consequence. Two or three sisters 
who had never left the village of Kenmare, and had all 
the conceit of a very limited education, of which they 
thought a great deal, because they knew nothing better, 
ruled the house, and the children of the convent schools 
were not slow to see the state of things and to comment 
on it. Since my arrival in America I have met some of 
the children of the schools, who told me they often felt 



*'£¥ THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM." 255 

inclined to rise in rebellion against the insolent treat- 
ment which Sister Agatha, a very gentle sister who 
conducted the higher classes, received from Sister 
Joseph. So great was the insolence of this sister to 
myself (I regret to use the word, but I do not know 
how I can describe her conduct by any other term), 
that on one occasion I was on the point of leaving the 
convent, and taking shelter with a Protestant gentleman 
from her violence, in which she was encouraged by 
Bishop Higgins. I was some years her senior, and 
that circumstance alone restrained her. 

If those who imagine a convent to be a place of repose 
and sanctity spent even a few weeks in one, they 
would soon be undeceived. Jealousy of each other, 
jealousy of superiors, jealousy of confessors, — these and 
many other things, which are inseparable from human 
nature when placed in certain positions, are the miser- 
able result of convent life all over the world. 

Those who only see sisters in the parlour or in 
the street are easily and sadly deceived. Sisters are 
prudent enough to conceal their animosities, and to 
hide their griefs from the public. I know it is difficult 
for those who have had no experience of convent life 
to understand why sisters conceal their troubles. But 
how many a wife is there who bears wrongs and suffer- 
ings in silence for years ? Her pride or her self-respect 
keep her from open complaint. It is just the same with 
sisters. They know too well the uselessness of com- 
plaint, and that although it cannot help them in any 
way, it will most assuredly make their sufferings far 
greater. I have seen a sister nearly faint after spend- 
ing hours rubbing the hands of a priest, who fancied 
this treatment, and required this and other services 
from the sisters. 



256 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

I have seen the sisters day after day occupied for 
a considerable time bathing a priest's feet in the convent 
parlour, after he had been digging in the garden for 
his amusement, and in his awkwardness had hurt 
himself slightly. The man was undoubtedly a little 
erratic in his behaviour, and his meanness in requiring 
such services from women was a curious contrast to 
his high professions of sanctity, and of respect for 
the religious life. He died a bishop, and I presume in 
the odour of sanctity. I believe that his persistent 
persecution of myself arose from his keen suspicion that 
I had the most utter contempt for his pretensions of 
sanctity, and for his conduct in such matters. As for 
the sisters, the way in which they knelt at his feet to 
perform this unnecessary service, which if he had had 
a spark of manhood he would never have required, 
was sufficient to show their character. 

The superioress of the Texas convent told me that 
on one occasion she and the sisters had to cut 
down a priest who was trying to hang himself, a victim 
of drink ; but she seemed to think drink too common 
an occurrence to trouble much about it. She told me 
also that she had to keep a sharp watch over the 
young sisters and the priests. It is impossible for 
Protestants to understand how it is that a Roman 
Catholic, knowing all these things, can yet remain a 
Roman Catholic. Yet it is so. 

I shall never forget the first time I saw anything 
like open quarrelling in a convent. It was soon after 
I entered the convent in Newry. There was a Sister 
Joseph there, also an unfortunate name as far as my 
experience went, for the saint, after whom she was 
named, whatever else he might do for his clients, did 
not make them amiable. Miss O'Hagan, as I have 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THE Mr 257 

said in my Autobiography, had just been made superior, 
to the intense annoyance of most of the older sisters. 
She was herself a good woman, anxious to do her duty 
according to her light ; but it can be easily understood 
that being very much younger than the sisters subject 
to her, she was looked down upon by them. Sister 
Joseph, I must .say, lost no opportunity of annoy- 
ing her, and this in a way which could not be 
complained of as a direct disobedience or fault. I 
could hardly suppress my astonishment at seeing this 
sister, and indeed many others, going day after day 
to receive the Sacrament of the altar, and yet day 
after day quarrelling with each other and with their 
superior, in a way of which any ordinary Christian 
would have been ashamed. 

The choir was a subject of perpetual and disgraceful 
quarrelling. Those who know anything of how 
quarrels abound in Church choirs, Protestant as well 
as Roman Catholic, may form some idea of the trouble 
in a convent, though all its members are supposed 
to live the lives of saints. 

In convents where young ladies are educated, and 
especially in the Loretto convents, it is the custom 
for a sister to chose or be chosen by each pupil as her 
confidant. The misery and heartburning to which 
this foolish custom gives rise could be scarcely under- 
stood outside the walls of a convent. A book has been 
published lately in England by a gentleman who spent 
some time in a monastery in that country, and who left 
it in utter disgust with the puerilities with which the 
monks occupied themselves, though it does not appear 
as if he had left the Roman Church. In a review of 
this book in an " Anglican " paper the writer states 
that he is sure the '' Cowley Fathers " live a very 

17 



258 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

different life. I can assure him, or others interested, 
in these matters, that bad as convent life is in the 
Church of Rome, it is peace itself compared with the 
life of Anglican sisters. The want of charity, the 
quarrelling, and the pettiness which reigns supreme 
in these institutions is below contempt. 

It was the misfortune of a friend of mine to pass a day 
and night, or part of a night, in one of these Ritualistic 
institutions in New York, under circumstances which 
should have secured her every kindness, but only to meet 
with conduct of which a respectable heathen would not 
have been guilty. Scarcely had she arrived when she 
was told that one of the three sisters who formed the 
whole community (for these ladies are very seldom 
able to get or keep many members, no matter how 
great their wealth) was jealous, and in a temper, 
because she had not been consulted about the visitor. 
The '' Lady " superior was absent, and the sister who 
took her place went to her room and locked herself up, 
and left the amiable number three to do as she pleased. 
The lady who had asked the hospitality of these "sisters" 
had been recommended to them by a bishop, and 
a near relative of this bishop made all the arrange- 
ments, and was to have called for the lady the next 
morning. She was treated from the first with the 
utmost rudeness. The '^Lady" superior arrived in the 
night, and next morning at daybreak came to the room 
which the lady in question occupied, and ordered her 
out of the house, with an insolence of tone and manner 
which no lady would have used to a servant. Nor 
was there even the shadow of an excuse for her 
violence. Heaven help the poor penitents who are 
consigned to the care of such ^' sisters." 

An enormous sum of money is now being expended 



"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM." 259 

on building a larger institution for these three women, 
and with the assistance of plenty of servants they will 
manage to carry on some kind of reformatory work. 
My friend suggested that if they commenced reformatory 
work amongst themselves it would be no harm. No 
doubt there may be some AngUcan convents where 
Roman Catholic practices are not closely copied, and 
where consequently there is more peace and charity. 
To me the awful part of all this is the high profession 
of religion made by those who are daily and hourly 
guilty of such sins against charity. 

It seems to be forgotten, in estimating the work of the 
so-called religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church, 
that it is our duty to judge the work by its results. 
In doing this I shall confine myself exclusively to 
Roman Catholic statements ; and it is indeed amazing 
that Roman Catholics do not see for themselves how 
utterly their Church has failed as an educator, or as 
an elevator of the people. Here is what the North 
Western Chronicle, the official organ of Bishop Ireland, 
of St. Paul's, Minnesota, has to say on this question. 
And yet this bishop has done his best to bring thousands 
of unfortunate Irish to his diocese to incur the same 
unhappy fate. But when I asked permission to do a 
work approved even by the Pope, to save these poor 
children, I only met an insulting refusal. It is absurd 
for bishops and priests to complain, as they do con- 
tinually, when Protestants come forward and try to 
save the offspring of their unhappy followers, while 
they will not use the least efforts themselves to save 
them. 

" From the number of destitute Catholic children," 
says this paper, *' that we see immediately surrounding 



26o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ourselves, whom we cannot send to charitable institu- 
tions because they have no means to keep them ; from 
the number of Catholic children in non-Catholic institu- 
tions throughout the country ; from the number we see 
at large, thrown on a cold, selfish, and heartless world 
to seek their daily bread ; and from the newspaper 
reports of distress in towns and cities, we are forced to 
believe that at the present time in the United States 
there are more destitute Catholic children exposed to 
the certain corruption of faith and morals than there 
were Catholics in this country nearly a century ago, 
when the Holy Father, Pius VI., appointed Right Rev. 
John Carroll to watch over, direct, and govern the 
American Church. What a terrible thing it would be 
if the Pope had then left the Catholic people of this 
country exposed to the loss of faith ! And are not the 
souls of so many children of the Church who to-day are 
positively exposed to corruption, as precious in the sight 
of God, and as deserving of care ? That there are many 
thousands, through exposure and destitution, on the 
way to apostasy is too patent to be denied. Perhaps 
never before in any other country has there been such 
an exposure of the children of the Church to apostasy 
and immorality, as here at the present time. 

*' The officials of a Protestant Benevolent Association 
have informed us that in twenty-one years they have 
sent to the West over 30,000 children, of whom at least 
20,000 were CathoHcs ; and still the train goes regularly 
once a month with from 130 to 150 children for distribu- 
tion. We know several other societies, five hundred 
and more Protestant societies, that have in the West 
established agencies to which they are continually 
sending Catholic children. It is sometimes said that 
these societies kidnap the little ones, but we can hardly 



"BV THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THE MP 261 

credit such reports. They can find plenty in destitu- 
tion without steaHng any. If the Protestant societies 
do steal Catholic children it is very disreputable for 
them. Yet we think it is more disreputable for Catholics 
to let so many go unheeded, and then complain of the 
few that are stolen. 

''Last December we visited two Protestant schools, 
not the so-called common schools, but Protestant free 
mission schools ; nor do they belong to the society that 
took care of the twenty thousand and consigned them 
to Protestantism. In both these schools there are about 
500 Catholic children. They have been run for over 
twenty years with the same class of pupils, who also 
attend Sabbath School on Sundays. . . . Twenty-two 
years ago two priests were passing along the sidewalk 
as the children were coming out, and one of the priests 
said to the other, 'What a pity it is that we have no 
place to send these children, where they could be brought 
up in their own religion.' And to this day we have 
no place to send them. It is an undeniable fact that 
a large percentage of the children provided for by 
Protestant Societies were once inmates of Catholic 
institutions. 

" A few days since a gentleman told us that on the 
15 th of last May (1879) he was at Kankakee, 111., and 
saw two cartloads of children arrive from New York. 
They were quickly distributed to farmers and others 
who had been forewarned of their coming. From the 
children's Celtic features, he judged the majority of 
them were Catholics. And he inquired, ' Is there 
no way of stopping their (the Protestants) infamous 
practice of steaHng Catholic children ? ' " 

What a disgraceful confession this is, above all, when 



262 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

one thinks of the enormous sums of money in the 
hands of the Church of Rome. 

The Catholic Visitor^ Richmond, Virginia, a paper 
pubHshed under the Episcopal approbation of Bishop 
Keane, gives the following account of the state of the 
Holy Roman Catholic Church in his diocese. It is no 
wonder that infidelty is the result of Roman Catholic 
education, and that this bishop, when made head of the 
Roman Catholic University at Washington, was obliged 
to go to Europe for professors. 

''The greatest enemies of the Catholic Church are 
Catholics. The genius of this great country will never 
perhaps admit of a persecution of the Church. Yet the 
persecution will and does take place. Who are the 
persecutors ? They are bad Catholics. It is a grand 
thing to be blessed with the faith, but to practise its 
maxims is necessary. We must not close our eyes to 
the great fact that the worst enemies of our faith and 
native land are Irish. There is a class of grovelling 
politicians who float themselves upon their Irish and 
CathoHc names, and yet are in their lives a contradiction 
to everything that is sacred and grand in the Irish 
character. These are to be found in almost every 
village and city of the country. The Irishman who 
ignores the sacred obligations of his Church denies his 
God, and becomes the greatest enemy of his race and 
creed. We are in this country losing more by the in- 
fidelity of Catholics than we are gaining. The Catholic 
who neglects to assist at Mass on Sundays, or to ap- 
proach the sacraments as commanded, is a living scandal, 
especially to the little ones. As soon as one command 
of the Church is ignored grace is lost, and the end no 
man knows. We need practical Catholics to-day." 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEMr 263 

Another Roman Catholic writer says, in an article 
headed, " Drink, Destitution, and Apostasy " : — 

*' An immense amount of the preaching and writing 
among us this last half century has been, and still is, 
on the necessity of the Catholic faith. There is also 
some exposition of the ' doings of the drink,' ' economic- 
ally, socially, and morally,' as the standard report is. 
That is all very good. But what seems to be commonly 
overlooked by the preachers and the denouncers of 
the drink is that the drink's injury to the faith almost 
countervails the benefits of the preaching. And this 
not merely, not chiefly, because the drink, in its con- 
spicuous effects upon certain of the faithful, brings 
discredit to the Catholic faith, where otherwise it would 
be considered and embraced, but because it casts it out 
of where it was infused by the Holy Ghost. For it 
makes Catholic parents to leave their children destitute, 
and so they get reared, hundreds and thousands of 
them, in non-Catholic institutions, and in homes not 
only indifferent, but bitterly hateful toward the Church. 
Only for the drink, the few Catholic children that 
would be left orphans would find an abundance of 
happy Catholic homes qualified and glad to receive 
them." 

As to the State of New York, where the wealth of 
the Church of Rome is almost unlimited, and where 
the archbishop makes and unmakes the chief magis- 
trates at his sole will and pleasure, it is simply a 
disgrace to humanity. It is only necessary to read 
the records of the police courts to see the names, 
nationality, and religion of the criminals. 

Philadelphia also supplies her share of Roman Catholic 
criminals. 



264 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

The last report of the Presbyterian Hospital in New 
York shows that Irish and Roman Catholics are a very 
large majority of the cases treated ; and yet these 
Protestant institutions, and all connected with them, are 
the subject of constant abuse by priests, while they 
grossly neglect their own people. I am acquainted 
with a hospital in Washington built right opposite a 
Roman Catholic Church, which the priest will not take 
the trouble to cross the road to visit, and where a 
Protestant gentleman reads prayers and Scripture every 
Sunday for the inmates. I could mention a hospital 
in New York similarly situated, where the inmates, 
Roman Catholic and Protestant, have to look to a 
Protestant minister for spiritual care, unless the priest 
is sent for specially. 

The London (England) Tablet is full of complaints 
of the neglect of English Romanists to care for their 
Churches and their poor, and of loud and noisy 
lamentations at the zeal shown by Protestants in look- 
ing after those who are going on the downward path to 
ruin, uncared for by the Church of Rome, until it is dis- 
covered that Protestants are providing for them, when 
there is an outcry against proselytism, and a call for 
money, which seems to be the panacea for all the ills of 
Rome. Yet none of it is used effectively to lessen the 
torrent of evil. Priests die almost millionaires, but 
leave their churches in debt and their money to their 
relatives. A niece of a recently deceased priest was 
the happy recipient of $50,000, and other members 
of his family shared in proportion. The New York 
Mail and Express gives the following statistics : — 

" The amounts appropriated to Catholic benevolent 
and charitable institutions since 1869 foots up in the 



BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THE Mr 265 



aggregate nearly $20,000,000, the sums in individual 
instances being as high as $2,000,000, while a number 
of grants for several hundred thousand dollars are 
registered. Considering that the Roman Catholics are 
believed to pay only about one-tenth of the taxes, one 
would say that they had their full share of corn from 
the public crib. It is true that some of the Protestant 
denominations have received similar grants at times, 
but the amounts are quite inconsiderable, and the great 
bulk of Protestants are opposed to the principle." 

The Mail and Express also states that $4,200,000 of 
New York city property is under control of Roman 
Catholics, who pay simply a nominal tax while agree- 
ing to use the grounds and buildings for charitable 
purposes. 

But if the Roman Church is so holy, and is doing 
her duty to her spiritual children, why should this state 
of demoralisation exist, which gives Protestants the 
opportunity to proselytise ? The truth is, that Rome, 
weighted down with her own infallibility, cannot purge 
herself from evil. She can only utter querulous cries 
of complaint against those who are trying to save her 
lost sheep. 

In England, in America, in Europe, it is still the 
same. The Rev. T. Regan writes to the London 
Tablet : — 

"St. Charles, Ogle Street, October i6th, 1888. 

" My dear Everard Green, — You will be sorry to 
hear that the resources of this mission have diminished 
to such an extent as to threaten it with absolute 
extinction, unless timely help be forthcoming. I am 
up to the neck in debt, in spite of the cheese-paring 
economy which I am constantly practising." 



266 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

The Rev. Charles Boardman writes : — 

^^ Promising candidates for the priesthood are yearly 
rejected, because there is no one to supply them with 
intellectual food. Mass is said in outhouses for want 
of a few hundred pounds to raise a respectable building 
for the Lord of Hosts. And this in wealthy England. 

'^ Well, perhaps the reader will ask if he reads so much 
of my letter, what do you want ? I want more gene- 
rosity on the part of the well-to-do. I want them, as 
the saying is, to come out strong. I want them to 
assist, and to assist with a strong lever, those whose 
shoulders are overburdened. I am not living in a 
college myself, so I can speak dispassionately. I am 
living in a small country mission, where I have learnt that 
God helps those who help themselves ; but I have been 
in colleges, and have seen what I have here portrayed. 
I fear we are losing souls from a famine of intellectual 
Catholic food. 

" I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

^' Charles Boardman, D.D. 

"LoNGRiDGE, October 2$th, 1886." 

Bishop Cosgrove, of Davenport, Iowa, speaking of 
Catholic papers, says : — 

'' We find that about one CathoUc in forty is a sub- 
scriber to one of them. We find the combined circula- 
tion of all the Catholic papers of the country to be less 
than that of some single issues of the Police Gazette; 
we find it less by thousands than that of the journal 
published by another single establishment, the Methodist 
Book Concern. Protestant exchanges charge that our 
people are ignorant, that they lack intelligence, and 
usually they have decidedly the best of the argument, 
for the facts are very stern and hard to face." 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM." 267 

This indictment of Romanists for not supporting 
their own journals is significant. 

The complaints of Roman Catholic papers — English, 
Irish, and American —of the utter incapacity of the 
Jesuits, the brothers, and the sisters, who teach the 
rising generation of Roman Catholics, are worth study- 
ing. And yet we are told incessantly that if the 
" Church " had only all the power she wants the world 
at large would be converted. Is it unjust to ask first 
for a little fruit from all the power which that Church 
possesses at present ? The following, all from Roman 
Catholic papers, show the present state of Roman 
Catholic education. — 

The New York Tablet says : — 

'* Sisters have not had the training indispensable for 
the efficient and honest carrying out of their duties. 
A religious vocation is not a certificate to instruct others, 
either unto righteousness or learning. When a com- 
plaint of this incompetency was made to a parish priest 
without obtaining a hearing, and when the matter was 
referred to higher authority, we were informed that the 
authority of the parish priest is complete and exclusive. 

" We have no means of testing the truth of these 
averments, but our informant, while petulant and 
irritated, is reliable and conscientious. We draw the 
•attention of pastors and superiors to his statements. 
He also draws attention to the fact, which is not dis- 
puted, that since the religious in France have been 
required to submit to the examination to which secular 
teachers are subjected, the schools conducted by the 
religious have greatly increased in value, and risen in 
the esteem of the Catholic people. 



268 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

"We propose to say a few plain truths about our 
Catholic academies. 

" The complaint is oftenest made by Catholic parents 
that they cannot send their children to Catholic schools 
because the latter must be prepared to make their own 
way in life, and the public schools are better conducted 
for qualifying them for it. This is not absolutely and 
universally true. But it is true in many cases. What 
is the reason ? Or are there more reasons than one ? 

" Perhaps there is an atom of truth in the fol- 
lowing letter, of which we print only the pertinent 
paragraph. 

'' ' Will you undertake to defend schools whose 
teachers never pass an examination before assuming 
the functions of the teacher, and who a day before, 
being clothed in the gowns of religious, of ' sisters ' of 
one community or another, are themselves pupils, and 
not scholars in any sense ? Is it not a cruel imposition 
upon our working Catholic people that incompetency 
is thrust upon their children in the name of God, and 
that they are thus robbed, in a great measure, of the 
attainments and the training with which their Pro- 
testant companions set out in life ? Is it not notorious 
that the discipline of Catholic schools is so lax that 
boys and girls come out of them utterly incapable of 
self-control ? ' 

^* These are serious questions, and they imply grave 
accusations. We do not propose to defend anything 
merely because it is Catholic, but we do propose to 
censure without reserve or fear anything avowedly 
Catholic which ought to be censured. Our corre- 
spondent claims in the body of his letter, which is not 
all in a spirit to justify its publication, that the teachers 
in some Catholic schools are notoriously incompetent." 



"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEMr 269 



Even religious instruction is neglected, as the follow- 
ing letter, published in the North Western Chronicle^ 
shows : — 

*' Sir, — How very sad and even humiliating it is to 
look around, and within a very small radius, and 
see the number of young people, young men especially, 
who ought to be Catholics, and are never seen at 
church any more. Who is to blame, they or the 
parents ? Have they got instruction enough to make 
them firm in their belief in the Catholic Church ? Or 
have they been sent to catechism a few times, and 
perhaps to a priest who could hardly speak a word 
of English, and then expected to be good Catholics ? 
They may continue going there while under their 
parents' control ; but have their parents any reason for 
expecting they will continue in it once they get away 
from home, and if they do not, I repeat, whose fault is 
it ? They got no instructions to make them believe in 
the right Church. Here is a ripe field for any Pro- 
testant. If Catholics would only take as much interest 
in their religion as Protestants do, there would not be 
so many going from the Church. Surely Protestant 
lay people are missionaries as well as their ministers^ 
and sometimes a great deal more zealous. Anything 
relating to Church matters interests them at once, and 
they always keep up such an interest in conducting 
their Sunday School, while, alas ! how true it is that the 
Catholics not only will not take hold and do nothing 
themselves, but will not even co-operate with the priest 
in anything for the promotion of their holy religion." 

The Italian Romanists of New York, we are told, 
will not support their Churches, and their priests have 
to look to the Irish to do this for them. The editor ot 



270 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

a New York paper had an article recently about an 
Italian priest who he says '' died for his flock." He 
writes ; — 

^' Father Kirner died for his flock, and yet at his 
Month's Mind there were many Irish faces, but scarcely 
an Italian one. At the great function of St. Anthony's 
the other Sunday there was hardly an Italian face 
visible, though St. Anthony's is understood to be an 
Italian stronghold." 

The editor of another paper says : — 

'* Italians are never counted on to support their own 
Churches, or their own priests, in this country. They 
give nothing for marriages, christenings, or other 
ceremonies that in the churches of every other denomi- 
nation call for acknowledgment. Their churches are 
built by the people of other nationalities, Irish most 
often, and maintained by them, and the Italian priests 
cannot look for sustenance to their Italian congregations. 
In fact, the pennies put into the poor box are often 
surrendered to the same Italian who, next moment, will 
revile the Church because it does not think it incumbent 
on it to give him a salary when out of work, or return 
him to Italy with the price of a vineyard in his 
pockets." 

So much for Italian devotion to the Church of Rome. 
As for the statement that Father Kirner died a 
'^ martyr," it is on a level with the boasts about poor 
Father Damien. The latter went to the Roman 
Catholic lepers, who had been utterly neglected in a 
station where there were many missionaries to care 
for the leper Protestants. And yet from the way in 
which he has been mentioned it would be supposed that 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM:' 21 1 

no one had ever attended to the leper settlement until 
he went there. Instead of boasting, the Church of 
Rome should be ashamed of her previous neglect of her 
own people — a neglect which was only remedied when 
Protestant attention was called to it. Father Kirner's 
case would be better described as suicide. He was 
warned again and again of the risk he ran in being his 
own architect, and when his Church fell the authorities 
were about to take action to protect the lives which his 
folly or ignorance had endangered ; and yet he is called 
a "martyr." 

If it had been said that he had caused the death of 
many of his flock it would have been the truth. It 
was well known in New York at the time that he 
would have been prosecuted before the fatal result, if 
it had not been for the power which the Roman Church 
has there, which makes it dangerous to cross a priest 
in anything, unless the ecclesiastical authorities are 
against him. No doubt in time to come Father Kirner 
will be quoted as actually having died for his flock, and 
perhaps he will be canonised, so easy is it for Rome to 
deceive the world. 

'' Inspector Martin," says a writer in the New York 
World ^ ^* who was dismissed for negligence, states that 
he warned Father Kirner, but he knew that Father 
Kirner had influence enough to get the permit (to 
endanger the lives of the builders, and his own). It 
is hinted that it is easier to get such permits one way 
than another." 

Surely the sacrifice of so many valuable hves should 
deprive Father Kirner of the title of ^'martyr," unless 
he has earned it by causing the martyrdom of honest 
labourers, whose interests he should have been the 
first t^ protect. The inspector is made the victim to 



272 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

public opinion, but if the priest had lived no one would 
have dared to blame him ; and the inspector knew well 
what the consequences would have been if he had 
interfered with the priest. Such is the result of the 
power of the Church when unrestrained. 

As for the Italians, their religious instruction is 
utterly neglected in Italy. Strange that the Pope, who 
claims that he can govern the world, is so careless 
about his own flock. If " an enemy " had written this 
what an outcry there would have been. 

A New York Roman Catholic writer was very angry, 
when the truth was published in the Roman Catholic 
papers about the state of Italy. He says : — 

" Was there then any need of bringing before the 
public the following indictment against the Italian 
clergy for criminal dereliction of duty, in order to 
explain the religious ignorance of some of the Italians 
in New York ? The duty of even rudimentary instruc- 
tion and training in the principles and practices of the 
Christian religion has been grossly neglected by large 
numbers of parish priests ; the state of ignorance among 
this people cannot otherwise be accounted for. 

" There are thousands of Italians in this city who do 
not know the Apostles' Creed. Multitudes of men and 
women of this people do not know the elementary 
truths of religion such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, 
and the Redemption. 

'' Mr. Lynch takes it for granted that the clergy have 
fixed revenues. It is hard to see how the poverty of the 
people can explain their ignorance. The apathy of the 
clergy in instructing the people is sometimes explained 
by the fact that they have fixed revenues, independent 
of the people, and fixity of tenure for life. They would be 



BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM:' 273 

more energetic in imparting religious knowledge if they 
drew their income from the people, and their positions 
or promotions depended on their exertions. 

" What, then, has been their religious life at home ? 
Some peculiar kind of spiritual condition, fed on the 
luxuries of religion without its substantials. Devotions, 
pilgrimages, shrines, miraculous pictures and images — 
indulgences they have been accustomed to, together 
with, in all too many cases, an almost total ignorance 
of the great truths which can alone make such aids 
to religion profitable." 

In other words, the religious life of these Itahans, 
in their own country, was rank superstition, and their 
priests and bishops are responsible for it. 

By all means, then, if an American or Irish priest, or 
Mr. Lynch himself, cannot go and instruct those who 
are yet across the water and are apt to remain, let a 
pious Methodist preacher and his wife be sent to 
Naples at once to instruct them. For Methodism is 
assuredly preferable to this '' kind of spiritual condition, 
fed on the luxuries of religion without its substantials," 
The benighted people will at least be taught that in 
God there are Three Divine Persons, and that One of 
them became man to redeem us. They will also learn 
the Apostles' Creed, and no longer receive the sacraments 
invalidly, as they seem to be doing now, because they 
" are not well instructed enough to receive them." 

The New York Freeman^ s Journal is very angry at 
Father Lynch for exposing the state of the holy 
Roman Catholic priesthood. It says : — 

" Certainly Mr. Lynch must have told some home 
truths when he could excite all this indignation." 

18 



274 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

The London (England) Tablet has the following very 
logical statement about the condition of the Roman 
Catholic world before the Reformation ; but what has 
it to say to the above (Roman Catholic) account of the 
state of the Pope's own clergy at the present day ? 

" It is quite true that there was still much irregularity 
and wickedness at the opening of the sixteenth century ; 
otherwise the so-called reformation movement, begun in 
violation of self-imposed vows in robbery, sacrilege, and 
violence, could not have had so many ready and willing 
adherents. But judging by the principles and the 
practice of those old religious orders, by what they did 
and what they attempted to do, it is fair to conclude 
that the world has those orders to thank, that in spite 
of the weakness of poor human nature the ^ Reformers,' 
after all, were not able to accomplish as much harm as 
they might have done otherwise." 

The Roman Catholic Tablet prints the following 
criticism, from one of its correspondents, on Roman 
Catholic schools, lay or religious. And it is just 
because conscientious parents know well that their 
children will never get a thorough education under 
Roman Catholic teachers that they even dare episcopal 
wrath, and send them to the public schools. 

" Most persons find that at this age (fifteen or sixteen) 
their boys have acquired a smattering of classics, a 
superficial knowledge of mathematics, and a vast fund 
of conceit, none of which is of the slightest use to them 
in starting life. I have asked the question of a great 
many masters, and certainly of a greater number of 
parents, and all agree that the majority of their boys 



''BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM.'' 275 

leave college before they are sixteen ; and I think, there- 
fore, that I am quite right in assuming that the heads 
of most of our colleges are officially aware that the 
boys will have to go into business, and will be withdrawn 
from college life before they reach this age. Yet, sir, 
knowing this, not one of the great colleges, such as 
Ushaw, Stonyhurst, Beaumont, Oscott, or others has 
a system of education calculated to prepare a boy for 
a commercial career. 

^^ It passes my understanding how the Jesuits, for 
instance, who have beautiful colleges, complete with 
every comfort, equipped with all that the love of our 
holy religion, the love of science, the cultivation and 
knowledge of art and music can produce, deliberately 
pursue a system of teaching of which three-fourths of 
their scholars never remain long enough to obtain the 
full benefit. They learn Latin and Greek, but within 
six months of their leaving college they have com- 
pletely forgotten them. Had they learnt French, 
German, book-keeping by double entry, shorthand, and 
a good deal of arithmetic, they would at once, upon 
entering an office, be found most useful to their em- 
ployers, and rapidly obtain a position of trust. Did not 
the report of the London Chamber of Commerce, which 
was published and commented upon lately, fully point 
out how it was that young clerks of German, Dutch, 
and other nationalities, receive comparatively large 
salaries, and occupy all over the United Kingdom 
positions of responsibility in commercial houses, while 
young Englishmen, for want of familiarity with modern 
languages, and ignorance of moneys, weights, manners, 
and customs of foreign trading, have either to be con- 
tent with subordinate positions, or have to emigrate to 
the colonies." 



276 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

The Richmond Catholic Visitor says : — 

^^ It is really a measure of disgrace to the Catholics of 
this city that they show so little interest in societies 
connected with their Church, but especially one of the 
nature of the CathoHc Union. Just view what has 
been done for the Young Men's Christian Association, 
and no doubt among the contributors are many Catholics, 
who do absolutely nothing for the societies connected 
with their own Church. It is a shame, and it is as little 
as such.can do to encourage this society by an occasional 
visit to the rooms, especially on literary evenings." 

The Catholic Citizen says : — 

" There is a great similarity in the Catholic type in 
all our cities. The education of the young has been 
such that a cheap ' hop ' is their greatest attraction, and 
their nearest approach to the ' literary ' is a taste for 
variety amateur theatricals. As for the older heads, 
they are often too modest to be worth mentioning. 
' Put money in thy purse,' and evince no public spirit, 
are among their rules of conduct." 

No wonder that educated converts complain thus of 
Roman Catholic ignorance. 

" It is a pitiable fact that we have no Catholic histori- 
cal associations, and that the works of our Catholic 
ancestors which as such belong to us, are published 
by Protestant societies — the Surtees Society, and the 
Camden Society, for example ; and it is still more 
pitiable that in the list of members of these societies 
scarcely a Catholic name is to be met with. It would 
really be interesting to know in how many Catholic 
colleges and seminaries, not to speak of the libraries 



"BV THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM:' 277 

of either clergy, convents, or laity, the works of Catholic 
historians are to be found." 

The following statistics are gathered from the 
census. In proportion to every 10,000 inhabitants in 
the United States : — 

Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals. 
By public schools of State of Massachusetts 71 69 ii 

By public schools of 21 States . . 350 170 75 

By Roman Catholic schools . . . 1,400 410 160 

In the state of New York the Roman Catholic 
parochial school system turns out three and a half 
times as many paupers as the public school system. 
No wonder that Macaulay says of Ultramontane edu- 
cation, that under its power the loveUest and most 
fertile provinces of Europe have been sunk in poverty, 
political servitude, and intellectual torpor. 

The Catholic Review of April 1871 thus explains the 
reasons why this Church does not provide even the 
simplest elements of education : — 

'* We do not indeed prize as highly as some of our 
countrymen appear to do, the ability to read, write, 
and cipher. Some men are born to be leaders, and the 
rest are born to be led." 

This is certainly true. The only pity is that so 
many Protestants try to support the pretensions of 
Rome. A recent public speaker, Chancellor Henry 
R. Pierson, of Albany, delivered an address at the 
commencement exercises of St. John Jesuit College, 
Fordham. He said, with a gush which has caused his 
speech to be copied into every Roman Catholic paper, 
and which will cause it to be republished and commented 
upon for years to come : — 

" Though I am a Protestant, I can thank God that 



278 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

there is a Catholic Church. You have nothing of 
which to be ashamed in the CathoHc Church, and much 
of which you ought to be proud. I, a Protestant, tell 
you that you need to stick up boldly for your religion, 
and the people with whom you come in contact will 
like you all the more. That, in substance, is the feeling 
of every honest and candid Protestant." 

Chancellor Pierson will no doubt be flattered very 
much by the Romanists, as ^' an honest and candid 
Protestant," and when there is a question of voting for 
any office which he may desire, he will be sure to have 
all their ^' honest " votes. But one cannot help wonder- 
ing if the chancellor is honestly ignorant of Rome as she 
is, or if he is wilfully blind. 

One would like to know what Chancellor Pierson 
thinks, not of the education of a few young men in a 
Jesuit College, but of the Roman Catholic population of 
the slums of New York, and indeed of its aldermen, 
and other Roman Catholic officials. Is he proud of 
them ? 



CHAPTER XII. 

SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES WHICH PROTESTANTS 
SHOULD CONSIDER. 

" Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to 
comfort them which are in any trouble." — 2 Cor. i. 4. 

THERE is at present a deep stirring of thought 
among Roman CathoUc laymen, which is none the 
less earnest because, for obvious reasons, it cannot 
make itself heard in public. It should be distinctly 
remembered that public expression of opinion, unless 
it absolutely coincides, either from policy or from 
conviction, with the governing powers of the Roman 
Catholic Church, is absolutely prohibited. 

Hence Protestants naturally think that a pale reflex 
of harmonious belief exists in the Roman Catholic 
Church, with a placid acquiescence in Papal infallibility. 
Never was there a more lamentable and disastrous 
conclusion. The Protestant who can speak his mind 
socially, politically, and morally, cannot realize how 
utterly impossible it is for a Roman Catholic, be he 
priest or layman, to say what he really thinks. A 
curious and very interesting evidence of this was given 
quite recently by Archbishop Walsh, in connection with 
the recent Papal pronouncement on Irish affairs. 

He said that while Protestants were obliged to decide 
on such matters (he referred to the last Papal pro- 



28o INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

nouncement) according to their conscience, Roman 
Catholics were bound to obey the voice of God as made 
known by the Pope, and were not allowed the exercise 
of a private conscience. ** Happy Protestants," a 
Roman Catholic friend of the writer's exclaimed with 
some emphasis ; " they are allowed to have a conscience, 
and informed that it is their duty to use it, whereas 
we Catholics are denied a conscience practically, since 
we are not to use that which we possess." In fact, it is 
the plain teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that 
the conscience, once submitted to Rome, must remain 
for ever submitted. How deeply the Papal questions 
of the hour are trying men's souls will never be known 
until the Day of Account. 

Ancient upheavals of thought in the Roman Catholic 
Church should at least satisfy the world that there 
never has been a dead level of belief or opinion in that 
Church. What anguish of heart and soul there must 
have been in the ages of Luther and of Savonarola ; 
what heart agonies in the time when the '' poor men 
of Lyons " and the Waldenses suffered *' loss of all 
things," for what they believed to be a purer gospel 
teaching. We hear only of the great warriors, the 
giants of the battle, the leaders in the fight, men whose 
thoughts set the world on fire ; we hear little and think 
little of the rank and file ; and yet they also thought 
and suffered anguish in their desire to obtain an 
answer to the stupendous question — What is truth ? 

How could missions of reform have been accomplished, 
if there had not been vast multitudes of thinking men 
to follow the reformer and leader ? One hand may 
light the beacon fire of truth ; it needs many hands to 
feed the flame and keep it burning. 

There is as deep an agitation in the Roman Church 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 281 

to-day as there has ever been. The fire smoulders ; 
when and where the flames will break forth God only 
knoweth. But for those who desire truth to prevail 
there is a terrible responsibility if they '* break the 
bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax." 

It is unhappily the case in America that there is a 
very strong feeling amongst some Protestants against 
any change of religious opinion ; and this feeling 
naturally finds an outcome on individuals who change. 
It is also an unhappy fact, undeniably and infinitely 
harmful, that some of the priests who have abandoned 
the Roman Catholic Church are of immoral character 
and degraded habits. Men of honour and self-respect 
do not wish to be classed with such men, and would 
endure any sufferings sooner than have the name of 
being one with them even in sympathy. Hence an 
immense and crushing difficulty lies in the way of 
those who see many evils in the Roman Catholic 
Church. They are powerless to reform it from within, 
and equally powerless to reform it from without. Men 
do not ask the cause of this miserable degradation of 
so many priests. They do not inquire why they came 
to be outcasts ; they only see a painful fact, and draw 
natural but false conclusions. 

Any other body of men may effect a reform in the 
discipline of their Church, or may leave it without 
reproach, if they believe that their conscience prompts 
them to do so. But it is not so with the Roman 
Catholic, be he priest or layman, be he -ever so honour- 
able, be his career ever so blameless, be his convictions 
ever so strong. He is maligned, sneered at, and 
persecuted by the Church he was striving to reform, 
and for the prosperity of which he would have given his 
life blood ; and he is sometimes discouraged by Pro- 



282 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



testants, who denounce this Church for refusing liberty 
of conscience to her children, and yet, such is human 
nature, discourage those who act on this principle. 

Let us suppose the case of a pervert to the Roman 
Catholic faith, who entered the Church before the 
personal infallibility of the Pope was made an article 
of faith, as I did ; let it also be remembered that if a 
Roman Catholic doubts the personal infallibility of the 
Pope he is as surely consigned to hell for ever as if he 
doubted the Trinity. A pervert, then, is received into 
the Roman Catholic Church ; he is taught that it is de 
fide to believe in the infallibility of the Church. There 
is no mistake about the matter; it is plain. The Church 
is infallible ; its living voice is heard through the 
Councils, and through them only. The idea harmonises 
with his previous thoughts, for such men have generally 
been recruited from the ranks of advanced Anglicans, 
who, looking for certainty of belief in the multiplied 
confusion of opinion, have flung themselves in despair 
into the arms of what they believed would prove a 
happy certainty. 

There was a certain grandeur, a commanding dignity 
about the infallibility of the Church as a body. The 
decrees of dogma came from the united voices of great 
and reverend men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and 
saying with the Apostles, " It seems good to the Holy 
Ghost and to us." In every congregation of men there 
must be a governing body. The decrees of the Fathers 
of the undivided Church demanded the respect of 
Christendom, and the obedience of the early Church. 

All this the pervert believed, but suddenly, and with 
little warning, came the decree of the Vatican Council, 
that the Pope should be declared personally infallible. 
Was it to be wondered at if men wept at this terrible 



I 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 283 

change, wept as the men of Israel wept when the glory 
of the first temple was recalled by the pale reflex of 
it in the second ? 

As no other ceremony, or condition, or sacrament of 
the Church was changed, the great multitude of Roman 
Catholic people concerned themselves very little about 
the matter. They had always been told what they 
were to believe, and now they were told to believe 
something else, and they were too indifferent, or too 
ignorant, to inquire further. But there were men who 
felt, men who thought, men who wept tears of agony 
in silence ; for who dare trust his fellow in a Church 
where the least utterance of opinion is followed by 
condign punishment ? 

A letter by Bishop Strossmayer, published in the 
Kolnische Zeitung soon after the Vatican Council, puts 
this fact very clearly : — 

" The Vatican Council was wanting in that freedom 
which was necessary to make it a real Council, and to 
justify it in making decrees calculated to bind the con- 
sciences of the whole Catholic world. . . . Everything 
which could resemble a guarantee for the liberty of 
discussion was carefully excluded. . . . And as though 
all this did not suffice, there was added a public violation 
of the ancient Catholic principle : Quod semper quod 
ubique quod ah omnibus. The most hideous and naked 
exercise of Papal infallibility was necessary before that 
infallibility could be elevated into a dogma. If to all 
this be added that the Council was not regularly con- 
stituted ; that the Italian bishops, prelates, and officials 
were in a monstrously predominating majority ; that 
the Apostolic Vicars were dominated by the Propaganda 
in the most scandalous manner : that the whole 



284 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

apparatus of that political power which the Pope then 
exercised in Rome contributed to intimidate and repress 
all free utterances, you can easily conceive what sort of 
liberty, that essential attribute of all Councils, was 
displayed at Rome." 

How many thousands, how many millions sank into 
the depths of despair in consequence of this decision 
can never be known this side of eternity. It is only 
now, when the personal power and personal claim of the 
Pope to exercise that power in politics is being enforced, 
that the multitude has begun to realize what was done 
in the Vatican Council. Thought is stirred, action is 
sure to follow. 

No doubt Emerson's saying is true, '^Tell the truth, 
and the world will come to see it at last." But the 
world is sometimes long in coming, and the prophets 
of truth are very apt to have a good deal more respect 
shown to their sepulchres than to themselves. 

Yet it is strange why a man's change of religious 
opinion should not be respected, as much as his change 
of opinion in matters of science. Men of science are 
obliged from time to time, in consequence of further 
reflection or of further knowledge, to change, to modify, 
or perhaps to abandon completely, preconceived opinions 
which they once firmly held. Yet they are not 
reproached for this. Truth is unchangeable, else it 
would not be truth. But do we always see truth 
clearly, and may there not be causes quite outside of 
our own control, or conscience, which may cause us to 
see more or less clearly at different periods of life ? 
Does not reason develop with exercise ? Does not 
our power of intellectual exercise increase with practice? 
And though the Roman Catholic Church forbids its 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 285 

members the use of reason in matters of faith, and 
practically forbids the exercise of conscience, 3'et 
changes have been developing, either for good or evil^ 
in the Roman Catholic Church ever since its founda- 
tion, which give evidence that some of its members 
have used their power of reasoning with unconscious 
disobedience. 

Irish politicians, like many of their countrymen, often 
inherit their religion from their mothers and preserve 
it through their wives ; and as its numerical strength 
is the great point made by Catholics when they wish 
to impress on their own minds, or on the minds of 
others, the great power of the Church in this country, 
the numerical strength of the Roman Catholics in 
America has told, and has told beyond all doubt, in 
politics. But what is the real — rather we should say 
what is the spiritual value of this preponderating 
influence ? Does it lessen crime ? Does it lessen 
suffering ? Has it elevated the moral or intellectual 
condition of the masses in New York ? He would be 
a bold man who dared to say, in the face of facts, 
that the Roman Catholic Church has been a powerful 
influence for good in that city. And yet was there 
ever a body so boastful of its own virtue ? It is time 
that some one cried out and awakened the rulers of the 
Church of Rome from their dreams of self-complacent 
security. If the shepherd sleeps, what shall become 
of the hapless flock ? 

^-Building churches, building schools, establishing 
colleges, publishing panegyrics on ecclesiastics which 
should make any self-respecting man sink into the 
earth with shame, that he should be the subject of such 
gross flattery ; is this a sign of real solid Divine life ? 
A very amusing instance of this abject flattery of 



286 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ecclesiastics occurred lately. A poem was written by 
a priest, in which Cardinal Gibbons was glorified in 
metre, and out of it, with the grossest adulation. Each 
verse had the refrain, ^' Loved Cardinal, Great Cardinal; " 
but the poet suddenly burst into French, and finished 
by declaring that the Holy Father had given the 
cardinal the coup de grace, when he elevated him to that 
dignity. 

Look at New York ; it should be pre-eminently a 
Romish city. The mass of the Roman Catholic popula- 
tion is Irish, or of direct Irish descent, and of the most 
faithful Catholic nation on earth ; but who will dare 
to deny the miserably social and religious condition of 
the mass of the Irish population ? Look at the exterior 
and social aspect. It is true that New York is crowded 
with costly churches, rich vestments, much singing and 
show, which attract the multitude even as the flame 
attracts the moth. But what solid foundation lies 
underneath ? The churches are magnificent and costly, 
and heavily burdened with debt ; but few are conse- 
crated, though they have been built for many years. 
Is this creditable to ecclesiastical management, or to 
religion ? The poor are heavily — I might almost say 
cruelly — taxed to pay the debts, or rather, the heavy 
mortgage on these churches, and with little hope of 
reprieve. 

We have before us a report made by the Rev. Father 
Colton in regard to St. Stephen's Church, lately occupied 
by the Rev. Dr. McGlynn. He announces a strawberry 
festival, to last through a whole week, for the benefit of 
the church. He urges the congregation to send him 
in contributions for an immense bazaar, and makes the 
astounding announcement that although the debt of 
the Church amounts to i 140,000, he is about to 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 287 

increase it by $60,000 more. It is said in the report 
that much sympathy is felt for Father Colton at being 
obhged to increase so much the heavy debt, but that 
he will obey the mandate of the Council of Baltimore 
to the very letter, by building schools. The old build- 
ings now occupied by the primary schools are to be 
destroyed, and handsome new structures are to be 
erected in their place. The Catholic Review, Archbishop 
Corrigan's organ, sympathises with Father Colton, but 
it does not sympathise with the people who are again 
to be taxed so heavily. 

We have already shown, on Roman Catholic 
authority, the kind of education which Roman Catholic 
children will get in return for all this expenditure. 
The subject is of such great importance, in view of the 
unceasing efforts which Rome is making to control 
education, that I give here additional evidence from 
Roman Catholic sources of the utter incapacity of 
Romish teachers. The New York Tablet says : — 

" But the fact remains that our Catholic schools must 
equip their pupils for getting on in the world. In 
some of them, especially in some girls' academies, the 
course of study is framed upon the fundamental idea 
that there is no w^orld, or that there is to be no 
laborious getting on in it for the fortunate inmates of 
such institutions. 

" This spurious standard of education is imported from 
the decayed courts of the Continent, and from the 
despicable and depressing circles of 'gentility' in 
Ireland and England. It has no proper place in the 
United States. Every child, boy or girl, should be 
equipped to make a livelihood ; and should be given 
the most practical as well as the most refined and 



288 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

learned education which the circumstances of his 
parents enable him or her to acquire. The twin 
notion that there is a class in this country of ' superior ' 
persons, ought to be driven in disgrace from our 
Catholic schools. The other day, a young miss attend- 
ing an academy in the interior of a certain State was 
asked if there were any day scholars at it. ' Oh no,' 
she answered, with polite disdain ; ' except some little 
peasant children from the village.' " 

The truth is, that sisters, from the very nature of 
their mode of life, are the very last persons who are 
fit to train youth. They may prepare children for the 
other world, according to Roman Catholic ideas of 
preparation, but they certainly have failed to prepare 
them for this world, according to the testimony of 
an immense number of Roman Catholic parents of all 
nationalities. 

The amount of money obtained from the Roman 
Catholic poor will never be known in this world, and 
is very little suspected. A priest, at his own will and 
pleasure, announces that a certain sum of money will be 
required weekly or monthly from each person ; and 
woe to the unhappy individual if the demand is not met 
promptly. We know churches where three different 
collections are demanded and obtained at each Mass 
on Sunday, from a patient, though often indignant 
people. 

As in the case of Dr. McGlynn's successor, each new 
priest must do some new work to get credit for his zeal. 
But all this is done at the expense of the poor of his 
parish. The priests get all the honour, and the poor 
get all the burden. 

The New York Freeman! s Journal , which expended so 
much red-hot shot on Dr. McGlynn for the debt which 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 289 



he left on his church, is lost in admiration of Father 
Colton for his zeal in increasing and probably doubling 
it. Father Colton, it says, is "quite cheerful" about 
it ; and he well may be, considering that not one penny 
of the expense will come out of his own pocket, and 
that he will get all sorts of ecclesiastical and episcopal 
honours and glory for collecting other people's money. 
The statement of the editor of the Fi'eeman^s Journal 
is amusing in more ways than one, and we give it here. 
He says : — 

"St. Joseph is a rich and powerful friend, who has 
often proved himself a benefactor to others even in darker 
hours than now, frequently causing magnificent churches, 
convents, and other institutions to rise seemingly out 
of nothing, as in the case of the splendid building 
erected by the late Rev. Father Dromgoole in this city 
(known as the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, but 
erected by the St, Joseph's Union through the medium 
of twenty-five cent subscriptions), at a cost of over 
^300,000, not including the property on Staten Island, 
which with other expenditures would bring the total cost 
up to about half a million of dollars. . . . Would it not 
be well to try some special devotion to St. Joseph with 
the above intention, such, for instance, as keeping a light 
burning constantly before his statue until the debt 
is paid ? " 

Well, if burning candles to St. Joseph will pay the 
debt, by all means let them be burned. But we fear 
the poor Irish servant girls of the parish will have a 
good deal more to do with the pa3^ment than St Joseph, 
and that it will remain for another priest to increase 
their burdens. 

And here it may be well to ask if St. Joseph can do 

19 



290 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

all these wonders, why do not Roman Catholics ask 
him to put down the liquor traffic, which is causing such 
ruin to souls ? While I write this there are five men 
under sentence of death in New York alone, who can 
trace their ruin to drink. 

There is an utter recklessness in the way in which 
buildings are demolished, which certainly could be very 
well made to serve the purposes for which the new 
ones are intended, and handsome new structures are 
erected without the slightest regard to cost, because 
they are built at the expense of a long-suffering people, 
and though the vast mass of these hapless Romanists 
are suffering untold misery, not always from their own 
fault, but too often from the neglect of those who should 
be their guides. 

There is but little money to spare for helping the 
honest poor, because splendid schools, and lofty spires, 
and magnificent colleges are supposed to be the great 
needs of the nineteenth century, and the Irish bear the 
burden of all. It was lately announced in the New 
York World that St. Anthony's Church, which is 
situated in one of the poorest parts of New York, and 
was especially set apart for Italians, is chiefly supported 
by Irish Catholics, though the congregation and the 
pastor are all Italians. We may well ask what is to 
become of the Roman Catholic Church in America if 
the Irish people are alienated from it, as the Catholic 
people of Italy, and France, and Germany, have 
become ? The Italians will neither build nor support 
their own churches, and it is left to the Irish to attend 
to their spiritual welfare. 

Reports will be sent to Rome of the devotion and 
care of the Archbishop of New York for the Italians of 
his diocese ; but will even one word be said of their real 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 291 

benefactors ? Will they receive even a passing meed 
of praise ? And in this connection I may ask, will 
one word be said or known in Rome of the thousands 
of Italians in 'New York who paid honour to Garibaldi's 
statue, and who never enter a church ? Here is a 
people who, of all others, should be devoted to their 
Church, and yet who have either abandoned it 
altogether, or do not care enough for it to give a few 
cents for its support. And it is well known, also that 
it is the Irish chiefly, if not exclusively, who build and 
support the French and German churches. 

Romish papers are absolutely under the control of 
the bishop of the diocese in which they are published, 
and they are guilty of sycophancy to an extent that is 
simply nauseating. In the Roman Catholic Church as, at 
present governed, everything centres round the bishop ; 
and for all practical purposes he is his own Pope, and 
the Pope of the people. Hence the profound deference 
that is paid to him, and which he accepts as a religious 
duty from every individual in his diocese. He is the 
local head of the Church, and a number of small deities 
who have to be pleased are more dangerous to society 
than one great autocratic ruler. A Protestant bishop 
would simply be ashamed to accept the fulsome flatteries, 
which are not only acceptable, but which are — must be 
— offered, to secure the patronage of the Roman Catholic 
bishop. No more deadly injury could have been done 
to the Roman Catholic Church than the maintaining of 
this practice ; and it will be kept up until some noble 
bishop rises in his might, and forbids and denounces it 
for ever. 

One favourite way of laying on this flattery well 
and wisely is to write an article on the great increase 
of Catholicity in the diocese, and attribute it all to the 



292 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

master mind, and financial ability of the bishop. No 
doubt a good bishop can do a great deal, but even a 
bishop needs help, both in the shape of mind and 
money. In fact, the bishop needs a people to govern 
quite as much as a people need the bishop. To praise 
one to the exclusion of the other is unjust ; and in- 
justice advances no cause. 

A moment's consideration will show how very false 
these boastings are. The numerical strength of the 
Roman Catholic Church has certainly increased enor- 
mously of late years, but how and where ? It has 
increased in the large American cities in consequence of 
Irish, German, and Italian emigration. We will let the 
Germans and Italians pass ; the whole world knows 
how very little Italians care for their Church. The 
Germans are undoubtedly a religious people. If they 
do not give liberally to the Church, they know how 
to assert themselves, and are doing so. 

But the Irish Roman Catholic is the great support 
of the Roman Catholic Church in America, and let us 
see what is his social condition. A few millionaires, 
a host of politicians, and a vast population of shiftless, 
thriftless, ill-cared-for people. Better, a thousand times 
better, that these people should be back in the bogs of 
Connemara, with their pure, fresh air, and their pure, 
fresh life, than in the crime-haunted liquor saloons 
of New York and Boston. Millions of Irish Romanists 
have fled to America ; and when one thinks of their 
miserable state in this country, it is hard to feel that 
the head of their Church, whom they support so loyally, 
has not one word to say to stop this bleeding of the 
nation, this destroying of a people who have loved him, 
one might dare to say, not wisely, but too well. 

They have increased and multiplied in the land of 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 293 

their adoption, but what has become of the descendants 
of the first Irish emigrants ? Are they now the stay 
and support of the Roman CathoHc Church ? Far 
from it. 

In all Southern States, in every town, you find names 
which are unquestionably Irish. '' The voice is the 
voice of Jacob," but they do not represent the Church 
to which, by their nationahty, you would suppose they 
naturally belonged. Roman Catholic people have in- 
creased and multiplied in America, but they have not 
multiplied as Romanists, and no one knows that better 
than the ecclesiastics of their Church. 

Of course the number of Romanists and Roman 
Catholic institutions has increased immensely in the 
last few years ; but certainly thousands upon thousands 
of them have lost their faith, and either have no 
religion, or have joined other religious bodies, because 
of the gross neglect of those who should have been 
their shepherds, but are now their task-masters. 

Once the principle is admitted that the Pope has 
a Divine and infallible right to decide on questions 
of morals, no man can deny his right to decide questions 
of politics, since many political questions obviously 
involve questions of morals ; and if this is not apparent 
at the first glance, it is not difficult, with a little 
casuistry, to make it apparent. 

But if it is admitted that the Pope's decrees on such 
questions are infallible, there is a corollary to the pro- 
position which is the key to the whole question. The 
Pope being infallible, he has the right to decide when 
a question of politics is also a question of morals. In 
plain words, according to the teaching and authority 
of the Roman Catholic Church, as at present organised, 
any infallible Pope — and we know that they are all 



294 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

said to have been infallible — can decide infallibly when 
a question of politics is a question of morals, and no 
Roman Catholic dare gainsay him, under pain of eternal 
damnation. 

Let us suppose, for example, there was a question of 
the election of a President of the United States, or of 
a mayor of New York. The Roman Catholic might be 
infallibly deprived of his liberty to vote. The Pope 
might make it a question of morals for whom he 
should give his vote. If, for example, Monseigneur 
Preston nominated for mayor his friend Joseph J. 
O'Donohue, in whose favour he has already issued 
a political announcement, and let us suppose, merely by 
way of example, that Henry George would make a better 
chief magistrate, since the nominee of a body of ecclesi- 
astics would not be altogether a free agent, yet Roman 
Catholics would be compelled to vote for O'Donohue, 
though they might be certain that the other candidate 
would prove more efficient. 

One cause, and I believe the principal cause, of the 
failure of the Roman Catholic Church to maintain a 
continued hold of the love and devotion of the people 
of any country has been the complete isolation of the 
interests of the laity. 

The Roman Catholic papers, as we have shown, are 
full of complaints of the indifference of the laity to 
the interests of their Church. If these papers are to be 
taken as true witnesses in their own case, this indiffer- 
ence exists to an extraordinary extent, even in the 
United States, and it is not a '' note " of ecclesiastical 
advancement. 

The Pope has shown by acts, if not always in 
words, that he claims a Divine authority to rule and 
direct the temporal as well as the spiritual affairs of 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 295 

the whole world. He is the final court of appeal, not 
merely in dogma but in diplomacy. Now what is true 
of the general public, and the influence of the Pope on 
national politics, is true of the power and influence of 
every bishop and priest in local politics. As members 
of an infallible body they are practically, though not in 
theory, infallible; as members of the most powerful 
combination on earth, their power to control the laity 
is unlimited. If the commands of the Pope must be 
obeyed by all nations and rulers at the risk of eternal 
loss, the commands of the priests are practically, if not 
equally binding, or, for all practical purposes, quite as 
effectually binding. Hence if the Pope can change the 
policy or purpose of a king or emperor, the bishop 
can change the policy and purposes of the mayor or 
alderman. 

The Roman Catholic laity have come to know this 
very well, hence their marked unwillingness to interfere 
in any affair whatever, which is in any way under 
ecclesiastical control. Nor are they willing to place 
themselves in any position where they may be made 
to feel the weight of the ecclesiastical arm. A priest, 
consciously or unconsciously, uses his spiritual powers 
to attain his temporal ends ; if he did not he would be 
more than human. 

Now, notwithstanding all the efforts which are made 
by Papal ecclesiastics to prevent the true state of 
Catholic affairs from being known, facts will sometimes 
be told, even through the Protestant press of New York, 
though it is more under Roman Catholic influence, 
probably from political motives, than is generally 
supposed. 

The Polish National Alliance is a political as well as 
a benevolent organisation. It has a large membership. 



296 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



The Polish priests have been recently denouncing this 
alliance in Chicago ; they proclaim it to be more political 
than benevolent. The members of the Alliance are 
numerous and active ; and have sent a petition to 
Rome, in which they say : — 

'* The priests want to control the private as well as 
the religious affairs of their parishioners, and render 
them virtually slaves to do their bidding, and failing in 
this, the priests have maligned members of the Alliance, 
and sought to create prejudice against them. The 
petitioners represent that they are true Catholics, do 
not belong to any socialistic, nihilistic, or anarchistic 
organisation, and in everything have deported them- 
selves as true sons of the Church." 

This incident is worth noting, and shows why the 
Roman Catholic laity are unwilling to act with the 
Church. They find that they are only allowed to be a 
Greek chorus to the bishops. They are to obey the 
Pope, to accept all decisions, even when they are against 
their own interests and judgment, sometimes, it is to 
be feared, when they are against their own conscience. 
Is it a wonder that the Roman Catholic laity speak 
with anxiety for the future of their Church ; and that 
the Roman Catholic journals have lately published 
very strong appeals to the laity to support their Church 
actively ? 

A southern gentleman, the editor of an influential 
paper, whose opinion would command extraordinary 
respect if I could give his name, said to me not long 
since : — 

^^ We (the laity) have given up all interest in Church 
affairs. We do whatever we believe to be necessary to 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 297 



save our souls, and we attend to our own business. 
Several times when we have tried to interest the bishop 
in plans which we believed would greatly benefit the 
Church and advance the interest of religion, we found 
our suggestions were not taken in good part, and were, 
in fact, considered as impertinent intrusion, and we 
heard so much of humility and obedience that we deter- 
mined for the future to withdraw altogether from 
Church affairs. The Roman Catholic Church in the 
South," he continued, '' is dying of dry rot. We have 
indifferent bishops, who are scarcely ever seen by their 
people, and who do not care in the least to consider 
any plan which they have not suggested themselves, 
and who only express an interest in the laity when 
they want to get money." 

It was well known in the South that the Roman 
Catholic laity there did not want Cardinal Gibbons to 
organise an immigration scheme ; its immediate object 
and its probable result are too plain. The Cardinal 
likes to come before the world as a man of affairs, and 
there is no reason why he should not do so ; but the 
consequences are of immense importance. His pre- 
sence on public occasions, and the singular respect 
which is paid him, are all used to make the Pope and 
Propaganda believe that he has all America at his feet. 
Americans believe that from political reasons their 
Presidents must honour Roman Catholic public func- 
tions with their presence, and that they must ask men 
like Cardinal Gibbons to public ceremonies. But in 
Rome all this is taken to mean that in a very short 
time America will become Roman Catholic ; and that 
as her prelates are treated with such distinction there, 
they will soon be able to govern the country at the 



298 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

pleasure of the Vatican. But with all this effort to spread 
the Romish faith in the Southern States, what is the truth 
as to its real position there ? Even Roman Catholic 
authorities declare that it is falling away. We know 
from the lips of a Jesuit Father how true such statements 
are. Roman Catholic schools for higher education 
have only two or three pupils where they used to have 
a hundred, though the names of these institutions still 
remain on the Roman Catholic directory as prosperous. 
Sisters cannot find vocations among the few Southern 
Catholics, and their sisterhoods are dying out. With 
regard to the coloured people the Catholic Review 
says : — 

'^ Since the war thousands of negroes, so we have 
been reliably told, have fallen away from the truth, and 
to-day Methodists and Baptists have strong footholds 
among the blacks, where formerly they were unknown. 
To-day the faithful among the coloured people frequent 
the parochial churches, while, parodoxically as it seems, 
their children have separate schools and institutions." 

The fact is, at Rothmanists have very little interest in 
each other. In Protestant Churches each member, if 
there is any life in the Church, looks on every stranger 
as an individual who might be won to Christ, and 
knows no way of winning him so good as that of 
Christian courtesy. The very nature and aim of the 
Roman Church produces a precisely opposite course. 
It is to the priest's sacerdotal influence everything is to 
be attributed ; hence the people as individuals are of 
very little account. 

At High Mass on Sundays halls and doorways are 
often so crowded as to make it appear as if the congre- 
gation was immense, when the half of the seat accom- 



SOME ROMAN DIFFICULTIES. 299 

modation is unoccupied, being left for those who have 
rented the pews. No doubt they have a right to the 
pews, but we are not here speaking of rights or wrongs, 
but of Christian charity. 

The tenement-house evil is the evil of New York. 
What is the Roman Catholic Church doing with all its 
wealth to remedy this evil ? " The policeman's club," 
says a recent writer, '^ keeps order, and the courts shove 
men and women into prisons and children into institu- 
tions." 

New York and Naples afford abundant evidence of 
the utter failure of Rome to Christianise the masses. 
When will the world realize that the Gospel, and the 
Gospel alone, can touch, purify, and elevate the human 
heart ? In these two cities, where Rome has had almost 
supreme power, the result, as far as civilisation and 
decency are concerned, has been the same. Naples has 
been the reproach of Christendom during centuries of 
Rome rule, in consequence of the dirt and degradation 
of its people, and this with every advantage of climate, 
and of the religion professed by the people. 

The children of the poor in Naples were left to 
swarm in the gutters, to be fed as best they might, and 
to learn to worship or curse the Madonna, as their 
inclination led. They blessed her, and burnt tapers in 
her honour if she complied with their requests. They 
abused, and threatened their puny wrath on her, if she 
did not answer their prayers. I speak of what I know, 
for I have turned with horror from the travesty of 
religion, which the Church of Rome not only permits, 
but encourages, amongst these unhappy people. I have 
visited the Roman Catholic Churches in Naples, and 
turned away horrified with the mockery of religion I 
beheld — immense figures, named at pleasure after some 



?oo INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



saint, dressed in gaudy rags, and worshipped. I have 
already given extracts from the article written by Mr. 
Lynch, which tells of the neglect of Italian priests to 
teach their people even the 'commonest rudiments of 
religion. And yet the Pope asks permission to teach 
and rule the world at large. Surely he should at least 
begin his rule at home, and give some proof of his 
ability to Christianise his own flock before he offers his 
services to others. 

And what of New York, where certainly the Roman 
Church has all the power and all the wealth which the 
world can give ? Archbishop Corrigan has only to ask 
and to have all that he pleases for the temporal or the 
spiritual advantage of his people. And yet who fills 
the police courts, the gaols, the workhouses, the lunatic 
asylums ? Who are the most corrupt of officials, and 
who does the Church delight to honour ? Is it not the 
very men who are a disgrace to their religion, and to 
their nationality ? We are constantly informed in the 
public press that the prayers of sisters are offered for 
the acquittal of men who have been notorious criminals, 
because they have given large donations to the Church. 
And this is the morality which we are "asked to admire, 
and which we are told is the religion of Christ. I have 
kept a list of those men for whom the Church has such 
a tender interest, and for whose acquittal she has 
prayed. / It shows that Rome has not changed, and that 
to give money to the Church is the test of holiness, 
rather than the giving of a good life to God. j 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF ROMAN CATHOLIC 
FAILURES. 

" Come out of her, my people, that 3'-e be not partakers of her sins, 
and that ye receive not of her plagues." — Rev. xviii. 4. 

ONE of the strangest mysteries of the day is that 
the Roman CathoHc Church should be supported, 
as it is, by Protestants. The poHtical support of the 
Roman CathoUc Church in America is, however, quite 
comprehensible. There the Irish vote counts for so 
much that no politican can afford to risk it. And what- 
ever Irishmen may say or write about their religion, 
their nationality is their real religion, and any man who 
stands to the " National " cause will have their support. 
Besides, the great majority of active politicians in 
America are Irish and Roman Catholic. They are not 
always a credit to their religion or to their nationality, 
but they have power ; and that is all that is needed to 
enable them to control the destinies of their adopted 
country. 

The power of the liquor saloon in politics is supreme 
in America, and the liquor saloon is controlled by the 
Irish, and the Irish are controlled by the priests. A 
man aspiring to the highest offices in New York, who 
has the support of the liquor saloon business, is sure 
of success. The ^' boss of the ward " and the proprietor 



302 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

of the largest liquor saloon in the ward, are one and the 
same person, and a power which makes itself felt. 

The ^' boss " can do a good many things not apparently 
connected with politics. He can send the children of 
the unfortunate parents who have been ruined in his 
liquor saloon by drink to some Catholic reformatory, 
out of which they emerge in a few years' time to walk 
in the footsteps of their fathers, to shout for Ireland, 
to uphold the holy Catholic Church in every way pos- 
sible, except by giving a good example. But what do I 
say ? The kind of example which we Protestants con- 
sider good, is not the kind which passes as such in the 
estimation of the rulers of their Church. It matters 
very little how immoral the life of a Roman Catholic 
may be if he has '^ kept to his Church." It matters 
not how honestly he may have lived, if he has not paid 
all his dues to the Church, and if he has shown the 
least sympathy with Protestants, as the following will 
show : — 

{By telegraph to the '* Herald:') 

'* Boston, March loth, 1889." 

" Mrs. Mary O'Neil, an elderly communicant of Father 
Brosnahan's Church in Waltham, was buried to-day 
without a Church funeral, because the preparation of 
the body, and the arrangements for the funeral, had been 
committed to a Protestant undertaker." 

And this is no uncommon occurrence. Even to have 
the services of a Protestant undertaker deprives a Roman 
Catholic of Christian burial, as effectually as if he have 
listened to a lecture by Dr. McGlynn before the Church 
of Rome had deprived him of the right to minister at 
her altars. 

There is also one point on which a greal deal depends. 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 303 

No matter what a priest may do or say, there must 
be silence as regards his faults. The priest has the 
singular privilege of having his character protected by 
the Church, not that the Church cares very much 
about the matter as far as the priest is personally 
concerned; if she did, she would have better, men to 
minister at her altars to-day, but she must look well 
before the world. The evil is there, and she knows it, 
and the cause of it. She cannot remove the cause by 
any attempt to reform the priest, as the circumstances 
would be sure to become known to the public ; and, 
weighted down as she is by her own infallibility, she 
cannot admit that wrong has been done. 

The editor of Le National, published in Plattsburg, 
New York, August 20th, 1888, says : — 

^' It is a fundamental principle of ecclesiastical law 
that the clergy ought not to be arraigned before the 
incompetent tribunal of public opinion." 

It does not surely need much discernment or know- 
ledge of human nature, to see what power this gives 
the higher clergy in dealing with the lower clergy. The 
bishop claims the Divine right to be judge in his own 
cause, and the world at large is required to submit in 
silent acquiescence. 

Rome cries out in undignified rage because she is 
not allowed to burn her modern Bruno, and her 
modern Joan of Arc, and calls on the world to sympa- 
thise with her because her own nation has made a 
grand and dignified protest against ecclesiastical tyranny. 
If Rome was not prepared to re-enact such scenes, why 
does she complain ? Why does she ask for secular 
power, but to enable her to repeat her persecuting 
history? Rome has had a splendid opportunity for 



304 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

repentance, repentance which would have strengthened 
her hands. Even suppose that she condemned Bruno 
as an infidel, could she not still continue her condem- 
nation, while expressing her regret for the inhumanity 
of his punishment ? The Inquisition has failed to 
Christianise, or even to Romanise the world, though 
Rome slew and spared not. Why will she not now 
try a different way of doing the work of Him whom 
she claims as her Master ? 

Karl Blind, writing in the Nineteenth Century^ says : — 

" What were Bruno's sufferings in the darkness of 
the dungeon in which the Inquisition kept him ? What 
ferocious attempts were made to bend and break the 
energy of the highly-cultured unfrocked friar, whose 
mind was nourished with the love of antiquity ? If, 
as a prisoner, he had a moment of faltering, the answer 
has been given in the words, ' How can you expect 
that torture, even though applied for hours, should, 
prevail against a whole life of study and inquiry ? ' " 

Campanella, who, after Bruno, was kept in prison for 
twenty-seven years, said of his own sufferings : "The 
last time I was tortured it was for forty hours. I was 
fettered with cords which cut to the very bones ; I 
was hung up with hands tied back, a most sharp piece 
of wood being used, which cut out large parts of my 
flesh, and produced a vast loss of blood." 

Perhaps some day, when the archives of the Vatican 
become fully accessible, we shall learn a little more of 
Bruno's last years of torment. On being informed of 
his doom he, in the face of a horrible death, heroically 
said to his inhuman judges : '' Perhaps you pronounce 
your sentence with greater fear than that with which 
I receive it." Among those who formed the tribunal 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 305 



was Cardinal Bellarmine, the same who later on forced 
Galilei to an apparent recantation, and Cardinal San- 
severina, who had called the massacre of the night of 
St. Bartholomew " a splendid day, most pleasant to 
Catholics." The sentence against Bruno was, as usual, 
to be carried out "without the spilling of blood." In 
the bandit language of the Inquisition, as Herman 
Brunnhofer expresses it, this signified burning at the 
stake. Before the victim of priestcraft was sacrificed 
his tongue was torn with pincers. But it still speaks 
to posterity in powerful accents. 

More and more it is seen that a great deal of that 
which in this country Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lyell, 
Lubbock, and others have by their masterly and suc- 
cessful researches made the common intellectual property 
of all educated people, had been divined in some 
measure by the prescient genius of Bruno. Unaided 
by exact science, he anticipated, in a general way, the 
scientific results of ages to come. The struggle against 
obscurantism has still to be carried on. While I am 
writing this numerous voices of the Ultramontane 
press come in from abroad, which speak in tones of 
inquisitorial fury of the '* Bruno scandal," and urging a 
crusade for the restoration of the temporal power of 
the Papacy. Some of these papers go the length of 
justifying the burning of the Italian thinker by '' the 
necessity of guarding the Church against dangerous 
heresies." 

The Salzburger Chronik says : — 

"He that will not listen and obey, must be made to 
feel. In order to save the good, the evil must be 
annihilated. This doctrine is the very basis of the 
penal law and of the Divine command, which punish 

20 



3o6 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

murder, and which therefore must all the more punish 
the murder of souls. This is in accordance with 
human conscience and with justice." 

Bruno himself foresaw an age of enlightenment, a 
coming century of progress, when the powers of dark- 
ness would sink down to the nether world, and the 
hearts of men be filled with truth and justice. To this 
prediction refers the proud inscription on his monument : 
— '' To Giordano Bruno this memorial has been raised 
by the century prophesied by him on the very spot 
where his pile burned." It may be open to doubt 
whether this nineteenth century has fulfilled yet all 
that which Bruno foretold. But whether Galilei's 
often-quoted word was spoken or not on the famous 
occasion when the Papal Church fancied it could stop 
the rotation of the world by bringing him down on his 
knees, the truth of his saying in more than one sense 
becomes ever apparent : — 

" Eppiir simiwvey '^ And yet it moves." 
And here it may be said that the present demorali- 
sation of the Roman Catholic Church in America is 
deep and grievous, to every one who has even the 
least respect for truth and virtue. The tremendous 
power which has fallen into the hands of an ignorant 
class of men has had the usual consequences. An 
educated priesthood may be a dangerous priesthood, 
but an uneducated priesthood is capable of acts of 
tyranny which are only equalled in their exercise of 
irresponsible power by the Herods and Caligulas of old. 
It is the old story of man dressed in a little brief 
authority ; and when the man so dressed is ignorant, 
uneducated, and either a bigot, or what O'Connell well 
described as a pious fool, the consequences are deplorable, 
and in the Roman Catholic Church they are irreparable. 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES, 307 

What a miserable condition of things was revealed 
by the McGlynn affair. Many Protestants have sided 
with Archbishop Corrigan from political motives, and 
from the delusion so common in America, that the 
Roman Catholic Church is the protector of property 
and the guardian of law and order. Even Chicago will 
not open the eyes of those who are wilfully blind. I 
have carefully preserved all the documents connected 
with the McGlynn case, but they would require more 
space than can be given to the subject in the present 
work. Some of the points, however, are too important 
to be passed over altogether. Protestants who do not 
care, like Gallio, about these things, were loud in their 
condemnation of McGlynn, and yet his best friends 
were and are Roman Catholics. 

It was made to appear as if he was forsaken by 
every one except a few women. Yet some of the best 
men in his late parish have defied all ecclesiastical 
censures, and held to him through all opposition. It 
should make Protestants pause, and ask, " Are these 
things so ? " when they see such an influential move- 
ment in the very heart of the Roman Church. But that 
Church works well and wisely for herself She has the 
absolute control of the press in America, with some few 
exceptions, and can act accordingly. Paragraphs are 
carefully prepared for the benefit of the public, which 
insinuate that the doctor's cause is failing, that he 
himself is failing. It would be amusing, if the subject 
was not so serious, to note the way in which efforts are 
made from time to time to depreciate his work, and to 
leave the impression on the minds of the public that it 
is a thing of the past, and that the movement which 
he has inaugurated will soon die out. 

It will never die out. I know, from my own personal 



3o8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

knowledge, that Dr. McGlynn has the sincere sympathy, 
and I believe the financial help, of some of the best 
priests in Archbishop Corrigan's diocese, and that the 
opinion of many of the best members of the priesthood 
in New York is that he was shamefully treated, and 
yet such paragraphs as the following are going the 
rounds of the press : — 

{Special despatch to the Boston "Sunday Herald") 

"New York, August 2^th, 1888. 

" Dr. McGlynn, the eloquent head of the Anti-Poverty 
Society, is threateningly ill. His health seems generally 
shattered, and his friends fear that some fatal disease 
will be developed by his bad mental and physical con- 
dition. He is now undertaking to open a vigorous 
campaign for the so-called Labour Party, and it was on 
Sunday last that he made his first speech. The famous 
series of Sunday evening meetings in the Academy of 
Music, which for awhile had drawn so many people 
ready to pay for admission that the spacious house 
would not hold half of them, fell off in popularity greatly 
before they were suspended in May." 

Later still the following appeared : — 

" There is no question that the Roman Catholic 
Church has devoted all its influence in New York to a 
quiet but very effective destruction of Father McGlynn's 
popularity. Archbishop Corrigan early and openly 
directed all priests to refuse absolution to persons who 
attended the anti-poverty meetings. Three priests, 
sympathetic with his movement, have been removed to 
out-of-town charges. The wonderful power of the 
Roman Catholic clergy over its people has been exem- 
plified, and Father McGlynn is wrecked, in every way. 



PROTESTANT SUFtORT OF CA'I HOLIC FAILURES. 309 



It is said that he will now take a trip to Europe in the 
hope of recuperating his health." 

While there are so many Roman Catholic reporters 
on the New York press, it is very easy to send such 
special despatches all over the country. As a matter 
of fact, it would have been no wonder if Dr. McGlynn 
was taken sick ; but to the grief of his enemies he is 
more vigorous than ever, and more successful as a 
lecturer. 

The ink had scarcely been dry on the excommunica- 
tion which Archbishop Corrigan forced from Rome, ere 
Dr. McGlynn's house was, I had almost said, broken into 
by a belligerent priest ; and if there was no other act of 
tyranny and injustice to complain of in the New York 
diocese, this should have merited the scorn and con- 
tempt of honest men. Some good, however, generally 
comes out of evil ; and the good in this case has been 
to show the world, if the world is wise enough to see 
what is plainly before it, that there was a good deal 
more of personal animosity in the case, than love of God 
or zeal for religion. It should be noted that not long 
before this occurred Archbishop Corrigan had made use 
of the popularity of Dr. McGlynn to obtain an appoint- 
ment for General Newton, and had sent the former 
to Washington for that purpose, another evidence, if 
evidence was needed, that the Church of Rome rules 
Washington. There were great jubilations in the 
Roman Catholic papers over this appointment, and 
General Newton was held up to public admiration as 
another man of scientific attainments, who was an 
honour to the Church. In his case, however, and in 
many others, the appointments have been a failure, and 
the General has disappeared from office, and no longer 



3IO INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

receives the praise of the Roman Church, for reasons 
best known to the parties concerned. 

The way in which Dr. McGlynn was treated by his 
brother priests, or at least a considerable number of 
them, is instructive. Like carrion crows they fell upon 
the man whom they believed practically dead, and tore 
him to pieces, as only ecclesiastics can rend each other. 
Certainly he had a few faithful friends, and all honour 
to them. It is the fierce and successful policy of Rome 
to crush utterly, when she cannot burn alive. Happily 
for Dr. McGlynn it was not possible to burn him as 
Bruno was burned ; it was only possible to break his 
heart. His popularity had been a sore thorn in the side 
of those priests who had failed to win the love of their 
own people. Then there was the usual cry of loyalty to 
" the Church," in the person of Archbishop Corrigan ; 
and great was the zeal to prove the devotion of these 
priests to the higher power, all of course from the most 
sublime motives. It was a state of things which would 
have rejoiced the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages. The 
two great pillars of the Church in New York are 
Monsignor Preston, and Vicar-General Donnelly. The 
latter gentleman was sent to evict Dr. McGlynn. He 
did so. He went to Dr. McGlynn's house, and demanded 
admission. He did more ; he went to Dr. McGlynn's 
room, and took possession. It was in Vain that the other 
priests offered to give him any room he pleased in the 
house, so as to allow the doctor time to remove his 
books and clothing. No, the cup was to be made as bitter 
as possible. The doctor was to be made feel the full 
weight of episcopal displeasure, and his priest persecu- 
tors were to show their " loyalty " to the Church, in the 
person of their archbishop, by heaping indignities on 
their brother priest. All that I now write was the 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 311 

theme of discussion in the public press of New York 
for months. 

A servant girl in Dr. McGl3'nn's house, not under- 
standing this form of Christianity, and thinking that 
even if he had done wrong, he should at least be treated 
with ordinary courtesy, — for even the criminal has some 
pity shown to him by his executioners, — expostulated 
with Vicar-General Donnelly, a man from whom, if she 
had known him better, she need not have expected even 
ordinary good manners under any circumstances. His 
only reply was to divest himself of all the garments which 
he could remove with the commonest decency, and then 
fling himself on Dr. McGlynn's bed. A Roman Catholic 
paper now before me describes Vicar-General Donnelly 
as " a man of brutal manners." There was a priest, also 
a doctor of divinity, who was sincerely attached to Dr. 
McGlynn, and he wrote a letter to the press, in which he 
used some very plain language about this matter. He 
had let his affection and his sense of justice outrun his 
discretion. But he was made to suffer. No priest, or 
for that matter no Roman Catholic, is allowed to write or 
say anything publicly about his ecclesiastical superiors, 
except his language is couched in the terms of the 
highest eulogy. He may write and publish verses of 
which a third-form boy would be ashamed. He may 
use French to complete the praise of those who live 
on praise, and make the subject of his adulation and 
himself ridiculous, as the ecclesiastic did, who said that 
Archbishop Gibbons had received his coup de grace from 
the Pope, when he was made a cardinal. But to say 
one word that even might bear the faintest semblance 
of blame, that is not permitted. So Father Curran 
had to be made an example of, and duly punished. 
There was very strong feeling among Roman 



312 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Catholics in New York, as to the gross injustice with 
which Dr. McGlynn had been treated. There were 
a great many priests who sympathised with him, and 
a great many who hated their ecclesiastical superior, 
and on that account were prepared to give very 
substantial tokens of their sympathy to the suspended 
priest. News of this was going to Rome, and there 
were public rumours that all was not serene in the 
diocese. Something had to be done for the archbishop 
by his sympathisers, and something was done. But it 
only made matters worse in the eyes of all sensible 
and thinking people. 

It told in Rome, however, and that was all that could 
be desired. Of what avail was it for the New York 
Herald to advise the Pope to make Archbishop Corrigan 
a Cardinal, and to declare openly and without contradic- 
tion that the same paper had been chiefly instrumental 
in obtaining that much-coveted distinction for the late 
Cardinal. A document, which would be signed unani- 
mously by the priests of the diocese, was necessary, 
for it was rumoured in Rome that there were a good 
many of the best and most popular priests in that 
city who were not well affected to the archbishop's 
rule. 

A carefully-worded document was prepared, the 
object of which was to show that the priests of New 
York were one and all agreed that Dr. McGlynn had 
deserved his excommunication, and that one and all 
were in full agreement with their archbishop. But as 
the question is a grave one, I shall give the evidence, 
as it was published in a Roman Catholic paper. I 
must premise that I have in my possession a mass of 
documents which show that the state of things which 
exists in New York has its counterpart in every diocese 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 313 

in America, and yet the Church of Rome talks of its 
unity, and the world believes her. 

I heard a student of the archbishop's seminary declare 
that he believed that such a system of tyranny never 
before existed, as that which was then the normal state of 
the diocese ; that the students were afraid to open their 
lips to each other except on the most commonplace 
subjects, and even then with due caution, through dread 
of the system of espionage. A priest, the rector of 
a very large parish in Jersey, called his bishop a 'Mittle 
puppy" again and again in my hearing, and informed 
me that he was so called generally by the priests of his 
diocese. What a state of things in a Church, which 
those who know nothing of her inner life imagine to 
be so perfect. 

The Roman Catholic paper to which I have referred 
(the Catholic News) had the following account of the 
McGlynn business : — 

^' Holy week of 1 887 is come and gone, and we are safe 
in saying that never in the history of the Church in 
New York was there a sadder one, or one less calculated 
to inspire devotion. The Catholics of this city tried to 
forget the burning question that for months has agitated 
all Christendom, and to follow in spirit the ' Man of 
Calvary ;' but in sorrow it must be said, that not since 
October last has there been so exciting a week, such 
a casting of fuel into a furious fire. To the credit of 
the parishioners of St. Stephen's, it must be said 
that they restrained themselves admirably, bearing in 
patience and quiet, and with all the equanimity they 
could command, the insulting innuendoes against their 
pastor, and the unjust discipline of his friends. Doctor 
Curran, the faithful disciple, was not forgotten at the 



314 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Hoboken Monastery, for great crowds went to see him, 
and to all he spoke freely of why he was there. It 
seems that the first report of his transfer to Ellenville 
was untrue, for a later report, coming also from the 
cathedral, said that he was removed on account of his 
devotion to Dr. McGlynn. This denotes two things 
very clearly. 

" First, that any of the clergy sympathising with 
Dr. McGlynn are marked men, and sure of official dis- 
pleasure. Second, that we cannot always depend on 
the utterances of certain people, that they are unreliable. 
As Dr. Curran's interview with one of the daily papers 
is of much interest we give it in full. 

" ^ I am not doing penance, for I do not consider that 
I have done wrong. This retreat means nothing more 
than a voluntary retreat. My time is my own. I shall 
use it for study and reading and for religious exercises. 
I said Mass this morning in one of the little chapels, 
and I am sure there is nothing in this little stay here 
the least bit disagreeable. It is a punishment certainly. 
I am sent here to give me a chance to reflect on my 
conduct, and I have always tried to be a good priest 
and to do my duty. I wilHngly obeyed the order to 
come here, but it is a question whether the archbishop 
can be justified in ordering me here. The question is 
one that has a broader application in the case of Dr. 
McGlynn, and how it will be settled I don't know. I 
was sent to St. Patrick's in Mulberry Street, and I was 
happy there, and tried to do my duty. Father Kearney, 
and all the clergy there were, I thought, very kind to 
me. 

" * One evening, it was March 25 th, Father Kearney 
met me in the hall and said the archbishop wanted to 
see me. ''Very well," I said, and I told him I would go 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 315 



up to the archbishop's house that evening, and I did. 
The archbishop came down and greeted me pleasantly, 
and surprised me by saying that he heard that T did 
not get along well with Father Kearney. " That is a 
revelation to me," I replied. " He says you are away 
from the house too much to attend to your duties," 
said the archbishop. " That is a lie," I said, with just 
as much emphasis as I say it now. Father Kearney 
had never said a word to me about his dissatisfaction. I 
could think of only one thing that could justify Father 
Kearney in his assertion. He has a rule which I think 
is not in use in other churches, that the outside doors 
shall be fastened at 10.30 every night. He has an 
immense key which locks the door, then a great bolt 
is pushed, and to cap it all, a great chain is drawn 
across and hooked. When I was in nights and heard 
that bolt and chain grate and rattle I felt as if I were 
in the tombs. I admitted that I had subjected myself 
to the accusation of being out after the doors were 
locked, but I am a secular priest, not a monk, and am 
considerably over twenty-one years of age, and know 
of no rule that would require me to be in every night 
at 10.30. 

" ' Well, the archbishop thought that so long as they 
were the rules I should have obeyed them. The arch- 
bishop said it would not be pleasant for me to go back 
to St. Patrick's, anyway. He also referred to my 
appearing at Jones' Woods on St. Patrick's day. He 
told me to go up to Ellenville for a while, and I suppose 
it was a sort of punishment to be sent up to the country, 
but I had a very pleasant time.' 

*' Where the good doctor will be sent next, or if the 
' ten days ' will be extended, we cannot at this time of 
writing conjecture." 



3i6 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

A reporter of a Brooklyn paper called on Father 
Malone, a distinguished priest of the diocese of Brooklyn, 
who had just returned from New York, where he heard 
of Dr. Curran's punishment, and the venerable priest 
was not slow to express his views. He was present 
at Dr. McGlynn's great speech, and when the reporter 
asked him if he had been warned against supporting 
him, he replied, " Oh, that is nonsense." Then after a 
pause, in which his face showed agitation, he exclaimed, 
" Are we in Russia ? Can't a man attend a meeting 
without being sized and ' disciplined ' ? If this were 
the first day of April instead of the second I should say 
this whole affair was an 'April fool.' I have never 
agreed with Archbishop Corrigan's methods, but I can- 
not understand him now. His behaviour is tyrannically 
inhuman, and tptally without reason or excuse. What 
has young Father Curran done that he should be put 
on a diet of bread and. water? Father Curran had 
been with Dr. McGlynn for eleven years. He had seen 
him for hours at his private devotions, and knew many 
of the secrets of his godly life. Why should he forsake 
him now" ? If I found a poor friend in the gutter and 
did not help him, would I be acting like a Christian ? 
And now this young man, for simply attending this 
lecture by his old friend and co-labourer in God's work, 
is * disciplined.' It is a crime. Father Curran came 
from my parish. I baptized him, and know that he is 
an intelligent, honest priest of the Church. 

" It is the work of a madman," he said. '' Archbishop 
Corrigan is so excited that he is no longer to be 
reasoned with. Nothing but the power at Rome can 
touch him. There are a hundred thousand Catholics in 
New York who hate the little archbishop. His useful- 
ness is practically gone. The very idea of attacking 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES, 317 



Dr. McGlynn's position in 1882, for lending his voice to 
the famishing people of Ireland. In this whole matter 
the archbishop has been wrong as wrong can be. I 
think it will end in his removal. The priests ought to 
have the courage to take sides on this question, and 
send to Rome their opinions for or against the arch- 
bishop's position. But they lack independence." 

"Do you think Dr. Mc. Glynn should go to Rome?" 
" Why, no ; why should he ? He is not accused of 
any fault as a priest. He is not accountable to Rome 
for his opinions on political economy. He believes in 
a tax on land ; but what reason is there in that to 
subject him to a call to Rome ? Dr. McGlynn has been 
faithful to his Church, his God, and his country. He 
will, if need be, suffer unto death. If he yielded to the 
efforts to establish one-man power in New York, how 
do you think we could answer such antagonists as Dr. 
Fulton ? He must stand as the champion of the Church. 
The placing of Father Donnelly, a man of brutal 
manners, in his place at St. Stephen's was a sad mis-' 
take ; but it may have been for the best in one sense, 
as it crystallised the sentiment in the parish quickly. 
I understand that this latest action of the archbishop 
has caused the greatest excitement yet known in Dr. 
McGlynn's old parish, and that even those who place 
pence on the plate are to be boycotted. It is a sad state 
of affairs." 

Quite recently two of the clergymen of New York 
proposed that a paper or testimonial should be got 
up testifying to the loyalty of the clergy of the arch- 
diocese to its spiritual head. It was to have been pre- 
sented to the archbishop on his return from Bermuda. 
For this purpose a meeting was called at the house of 
a sympathising priest, but no one responded to the 



3i8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

call save the two promoters of the scheme. It failed, 
only, it appears, to be revived in another form. Here 
is what the Daily Herald has to say on the matter : — 

" A reporter was assured recently that Dr. McGlynn's 
opponents were carrying out a scheme to make it 
appear that the deposed pastor of St. Stephen's had no 
sympathisers. An interview with a liberal-minded 
Catholic layman, who is known to almost every priest 
in New York, revealed the fact that a document was 
really in circulation among the clergy calling for their 
indorsement of Archbishop Corrigan. 

*' ' It is an attempt/ said this gentleman, * to coerce 
the priests whose comfort and freedom are largely at 
the mercy of the archbishop. It was a friend of mine 
who notified the Herald of this dodge on Thursday.' 

" ^ Is it really the suggestion of the archbishop ? ' 
asked the reporter. 

^* ' I will not be positive of that,' was the reply. 
' But here are the names of the priests who are engineer- 
ing the affair, Monsignor Preston, of St. Ann's ; Father 
Lynch, of the Church of Transfiguration, in Mott Street ; 
Father Kearney, of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in Mulberry 
Street ; Father McGean, of St. Peter's, in Barclay Street ; 
and Dr. Brann, of St. Elizabeth's, Washington Heights. 
Monsignor Preston's hostility to Dr. McGlynn is well 
known. Father Lynch is also very hostile. He was 
once an assistant to Dr. McGlynn at St. Stephen's, and 
Dr. McGlynn had good reason to cause his removal. 
Father Lynch then went to Father Preston's Church, 
where you may be sure his dislike to Dr. McGlynn 
was not suffered to diminish. He is one of the most 
active circulators of the coercion document.' 

'' ^ Have you a copy of that paper Mr. O'Donoghue ? ' 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 319 

(The reporter had asked permission of the gentleman 
to let him call him Mr. O'Donoghue.) 

'* ' No ; I do not think there are more than three 
in existence. When one of the emissaries brings a copy 
to a priest for his signature, if he finds it necessary 
to leave it for a time, he exacts a promise from the 
bull-dozed one that he shall not give it away, divulge 
its contents, or make a copy of it. I have seen it, 
however, and it is to this effect : — 

** ' " That the priests of this archdiocese desire to 
assure His Grace that they heartily approve of his con- 
duct in the troubles now existing in the diocese. Espe- 
cially do they approve of your conduct toward Edward 
McGlynn, whose disobedience to your authority has 
been a source of great scandal not only to us but to 
the clergy and to the laity." 

^' ' The document then goes on to say that Dr. 
McGlynn's disobedience has been aggravated by his 
subsequent conduct toward even the holy Father, and 
that his motives have been dictated by a spirit of vanity 
and vindictiveness, and not by a regard for law and 
religion. It has this quotation from Proverbs : — 

" * " He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and 
the rod of his anger shall fail." 

''' Observe,' continued Mr. O'Donoghue, 'that this 
document, in referring to the recent pastor of St. 
Stephens, drops all title, and merely calls him " Edward 
McGlynn." There are numbers of poor priests who 
have signed this under protest, feeling that if they did 
not they would be marked men. As a Catholic, I must 
say that this is a scheme unworthy of Catholic gentle- 
men, whether they be priests or laymen.' 

"The reporter then went and interviewed several 



320 INSIDE THE CHURCH 01 ROME. 

clergymen. One said, ' I am not in full sympathy with 
Dr. McGlynn, but why should I be compelled to attri- 
bute vanity and vindictiveness to Dr. McGlynn, whose 
whole life has been that of an honourable and an 
upright man, and an exemplary priest ? ' 

" A third : ^ It was sprung upon me suddenly, and 
I was asked which side I was on. I signed it under 
protest.' 

'' A fourth : ^ It is bull-dozing pure and simple. The 
paper is going to Rome to create a false impression, and 
eventually all our names are to be published. I feel 
I have done something I shall regret. A man never 
knows when it may come his turn to suffer next.' 

'* Many other priests spoke in a similar strain." 

The Rev. Dr. Curran wrote the following manly 
letter in reply to the inquisition made on him to sign 
the address, praising the archbishop and condemning 
Dr. McGlynn :— 

" Rev. and Dear Sirs, — I have received from you 
a circular letter requesting my signature to a printed 
address to our archbishop. I cannot conscientiously 
comply with your request. 

" I regret that you and other priests of this diocese 
find it necessary to express in a public document your 
ioyalty to authority. I should feel guilty of a calumny 
if I should sign the paper sent to me, containing, as 
it does, these words : ' We desire on this occasion to 
record our emphatic disapproval and reprobation of the 
act of disobedience and disloyalty to your authority of 
which a certain member of our body has made himself 
guilty, an act of disloyalty aggravated by his subsequent 
course.' It is not disloyalty to act according to sub- 
mitted principles of Catholic theology. These principles 



PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC FAILURES. 321 

teach us that every Catholic is free to adhere to an 
opinion until it shall have been condemned by the one 
legitimate authority. 

" You speak of a certain member of our body as ' dis- 
obedient and disloyal.' I know of none such. The 
priest to whom I am told you refer in your address has 
declared again and again that if the doctrine, for refusing 
to abandon which he is still suspended from his pastoral 
office, should be condemned by the only authority we 
all recognise in such matters, he would, as a Catholic, 
repudiate it. And I know with certainty, that that 
authority, so far from condemning, has never even 
examined the doctrine. I am entirely at a loss to know 
what ^ aggravation ' of his alleged disloyalty you are 
able to find in what you call his ' subsequent course.' 
Is it not true, on the contrary, that Dr. McGlynn has 
maintained a discreet silence, broken only by a state- 
ment made necessary to supplement the incomplete 
presentation of his case in an authoritative docum-ent ? 
Moreover, I shall feel guilty of a pharisaic hypocrisy, if, 
after seeming, by my signature, to approve that portion 
of your address which I have just said I could not sign 
without feeling guilty of calumny, I should join with 
you in saying : ' We have been patiently hoping and 
praying that our dear brother would change his mind 
and return to his Father's house.' It would seem to me 
mockery to call one ' my dear brother ' at a moment 
when I knew I was calumniating him ; and while phari- 
saically praying for the return of the ' dear brother ' to 
his Father's house, I should be conscious that I was 
calumniating him by implying that he had ever aban- 
doned his Father's house. This calumny would be all 
the more unpardonable since the Mear brother' has 
several times publicly asseverated, with the greatest 

21 



322 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



emphasis and solemnity, that he never has and never 
will abandon what you must mean by his Father's house, 
the holy Catholic Church." 

I regret that it is not possible to give the entire 
history of Dr. McGlynn's case in the present work. It 
is one of the greatest importance in all its bearings. 
It is a proof, if proof were needed, that Rome has not 
ceased to persecute, and that she is limited in the 
expression of her displeasure only by the exigencies of 
the present times, which do not allow of the public 
execution of heretics, or of those who from any cause 
have offended her. 

The spirit of vengeance, and of what can only be 
called petty spite, on the part of Dr. McGlynn's brother 
clergy, shows how little mercy they would have for 
each other, if power was placed in their hands to act as 
they pleased. It shows that there is very little of the 
spirit of Christ left in the Church of Rome, and that 
the persecuting spirit of ages supposed to be past, 
needs only opportunity to revive. 






CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EFFECTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TEACHING- 
ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES AND HIGHER 
EDUCATION. 

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." — Prov. ix. lo. 

SOME remarkable admissions which have been 
pubHshed, on the subject of the effects of Roman 
CathoHc teaching, in the Tablet, the leading organ of 
English Roman Catholic opinion, are, in view of present 
discussions, well worth consideration. 

The Roman Catholic religion has had every advan- 
tage in England. It has been fashionable. It has had 
political prestige. The fashionable perverts to this 
faith, if they have not increased in numbers, have not 
decreased in power. The Roman Catholic episcopacy 
are not slow to see all that can be made of social posi- 
tion ; and as, by means of their influential friends, they 
can gain access to families which they might not other- 
wise have entered easily, they know well how social 
position affects the prosperity of Romanism. And in 
the meantime, what of the English perverts, and the 
Roman Catholic Church in England ? What of the 
vast multitude of the EngHsh people ? Are they being 
won over to the Roman faith ? What of the English 
priests and the English missions ? Are the distin- 
guished perverts caring for them ? 

If the accounts published in recent copies of the 



324 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME, 

Tablet are true, a considerable number of these unfortu- 
nate priests are half starving. One priest writes that 
he is living on porridge only, because if he did not do 
so he would not have the money to keep up his schools. 
Another priest says, '' I beg for a few shillings or 
sixpences." Another writes a piteous appeal to a 
gentleman in London, which this gentleman publishes 
in the Tablet. He says that one of the largest Churches 
in London is so seriously embarrassed and in debt, 
that he fears it will be unable to meet its ordinary 
expenses. A priest has a sensational and pathetic 
advertisement, which commences thus: ''help, help, 
MY CHURCH IS FALLING," and Continues, " For the love of 
Mary, help me to rebuild her church at Lynn." It is 
to this that the Roman Catholic Church has come in 
England ; and these almost despairing cries for help are 
repeated day after day in the English papers, and 
apparently there is none to heed them. 

A remarkable appeal was made in these papers in the 
year 1888, which was curiously pathetic in its character. 
A priest wrote a letter, which was purported to be 
written by a gentleman who had just died, addressed to 
his wife. Its object was to draw the attention of this 
lady to the difference revealed to him in purgatory 
between the luxurious appointments of his own house, 
and the poverty and misery of the house of God. He 
describes in glowing language the feelings of shame 
and grief which he experienced at the contrast between 
the two. It certainly was a plain hint to her to do 
something for the Church. 

In mediaeval ages the priest would have had a vision, 
and would have informed the bereaved widow that her 
late husband had commanded her to make certain 
offerings for the release of his soul. I do not know 



EFFECTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TEACHING. 325 



whether this lady took the hint thus cleverly conveyed, 
but however this may be, it shows how little Roman 
Catholic teaching has been able to do in England, with 
all its advantages of a share in the public government, 
and with perfect liberty to teach as it will. 

But it is not only as to the results of Roman Catholic 
teaching, as far as devotion to the Church is concerned, 
that we are enlightened by this writer, or rather by 
these writers ; for the contributors to the Tablet are 
numerous, and among the most influential of English- 
speaking Roman Catholics. The whole question of 
education is discussed with a freedom which would be 
surprising, if we did not realize that English Roman 
Catholics have always found their opinions respected 
by the Court of Rome. 

There is no other religious body which fears the least 
breath of criticism as they do, and this has been the 
cause of great trouble in England. The perverts, who 
form the only educated portion of the Roman flock, are 
very much alive to the advantages of higher education, 
and greatly desire it for their children. The priests, 
and in some cases even the convent priests, are of 
another opinion. At first a compromise was hoped for, 
when the experiment of establishing a Roman Catholic 
university was made in Ireland, and the name of 
Newman was used to charm. It was supposed that 
the Irish people would be won over by the compliment 
of this selection of their own country as the location 
of the university, which was to be so famous, just 
as the astute Bishop of Richmond hopes to captivate 
the people of America by the selection of Washington 
for the American Roman Catholic university. 

It was confidently expected that the name of 
Newman would have secured the interest and patronage 



326 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

of English Roman Catholics, and that the chronic feud 
between English and Irish Roman Catholics would have 
died a natural death. But, alas for human hopes and 
plans ! Even Newman's name did not heal internal 
dissensions and jealousies, which seem to exist with 
special intensity between those who love their faith so 
much, and their religious brethren so little. The Irish 
Roman Catholic university proved a miserable failure, 
although money was poured out on it like water. 

The next effort and the next failure was in connection 
with the plan to establish a Roman Catholic university 
in London. Again money was poured forth like water. 
All that ecclesiastical power could do was done, only to 
add another failure to the list. It was next proposed 
to have a Roman Catholic college in Oxford, and this 
plan might have been carried out if it had not struck 
terror into the hearts of the higher clergy, who opposed 
it resolutely, fearing lest the close communication which 
must necessarily arise between the Roman Catholic and 
the Protestant students would result in loss of faith to 
the former. Those who wished for higher education for 
their children were obhged to yield, but they were not 
satisfied, nor were they silenced. 

The London University has been the literary refuge 
of the hapless Roman Catholic youth, who knew that 
his own colleges could give him no diploma which 
the world would recognise or respect. It was a poor 
substitute for a greatly desired good ; and now the 
Roman Catholic papers are full of the complaints of 
heads of families who have discovered that this supposed 
good is not only useless, but that it is even injurious. 
A gentleman writing in the Tablet, and signing himself 
Bernard Whelan, says : — 

'' There should be no attempt to pass students at the 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 327 

London University. The whole system is one for the 
manufacture of probable prigs. As the years go on 
we want reasons, and we have none. With intelligent 
beings surely reason is the dominant faculty. Why 
should it not be cultivated as much as the memory or 
the imagination even from childhood ? " 

Why the reasoning powers are not sufficiently culti- 
vated in the Roman Catholic Church is told very plainly 
in the same paper. 

Attempts are made from time to time by English 
Roman Catholics to promote the circulation of Roman 
Catholic literature, but these attempts have always ended 
in a miserable failure. A '* Catholic Truth Society " 
(so-called) was established in England some time since, 
and is only kept alive by spasmodic efforts. In report- 
ing a meeting of this society the editor of the Tablet 
laments the good old time when ignorance was bliss, 
and there was no need for teaching the people anything. 
Now they will argue, and must have a reason for what 
they believe. The editor says : " A generation ago, 
when children had thoroughly learned the truths of the 
catechism, and had happened to be placed in a settled 
home life, there was less reason to fear." To fear 
what ? Plainly that the poor Roman Catholic would 
learn to know or read anything beyond his catechism. 
Colonel R. Chichester, an ardent and educated Roman 
Catholic, is so little satisfied with the Roman Catholic 
school system in England that he says : '* It is the 
duty of parents to find out the educational power of 
each school. Every boy and girl should be obliged to 
pass an annual examination at the hands of a State 
official." 

After all, Roman Catholics themselves are the best 



328 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

evidence of the failure of their own system of priestly 
interference in the affairs of life. 

What has been the result of the establishment of 
Roman Catholic universities ? Such establishments 
have simply been utter failures, socially, religiously, 
and financially. This is a bold assertion, but I give 
proof of it from Catholic sources, and from personal 
knowledge. 

And first we may consider the condition of the 
Roman Catholic University of Dublin. A more miser- 
able fiasco is hardly on record. It may be said that 
the exceptional conditions of that country made failure 
inevitable. But there is one point on which success 
is always sure for any Catholic undertaking, engineered 
by a few Catholic bishops, and that is financial success. 
Success in that direction has been more easily obtained 
in America than in Ireland. Urgent as were the demands 
of the Irish priests under episcopal compulsion, the funds 
so obtained for the Catholic university in Dublin fell 
very far short of the desires of its promoters. In 
America the case has been different. While hundreds 
of thousands of hapless children and long-suffering 
girls are left to the tender mercies of public officials 
and institutions, hundreds of thousands of dollars are 
poured forth like water to build and endow an insti- 
tution, on which some, even of the Roman Catholic 
episcopacy, look with no favourable eye. 

An article on the Irish Catholic university appeared 
in ih^ Dublin Review^ for October 1887. This quarterly, 
poor as it is in literary merit, is the only serial of the 
kind to which British Catholics can lay claim. Let us 
look, then, at the Irish Catholic university, and see 
what has been said of it by Catholics, and what has 
been the result of all this lavish expenditure, princi- 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES, 329 



pally of the money of the poor. If the Irish Catholic 
university proved a disastrous failure, what hope is 
there for the success of an American Catholic university, 
which has only the one additional advantage of being 
able to secure enormous sums of money, but which 
wants the many special advantages of the Dublin insti- 
tution. The article referred to in the Dublin Review 
opens thus : — 

"The project of a Catholic university for Ireland, 
started by the Synod of Thurles in 1850, has had such 
scanty measure of success, while on the other hand, 
centres of the higher instruction, such as Cardiff, 
Bangor, Liverpool, etc., based on the principle that 
very probably there is no God, have prospered as soon 
as founded, as if they met a clear want of the time, 
that there is abundant reason why a Catholic should 
examine the matter very earnestly and very closely." 

The writer of this article in the Dublin Review^ who 
is well known, and who describes himself correctly as 
" one of the old staff," declares what the object of the 
Dublin Catholic University was : — 

"It is no use," he says, ^'indulging in generalities and 
fine words. What practical result did the Thurles Synod 
and their lay supporters look for ? By establishing a 
Catholic seat of learning they hoped ultimately to secure 
this ; that if an Irishman in any part of Ireland, or of 
the world for that matter, wished to know what were 
the latest theories and the most important books on 
early Roman history, or on Turanian philology or 
Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions, or quaternions, or the 
doctrine of probability, or the correlation of forces, or 
the Elizabethan dramatists ; in short, upon any one 
whatsoever of the subjects of higher or more difficult 



330 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF R0M£. 

inquiry with which the human mind is at present 
engaged, he should be sure of finding some learned 
scholar or savant in Dublin capable of giving him all 
the information he required, and of showing him all 
the books, apparatus, specimens, experiments, etc., 
necessary to guide his judgment." 

This, then, was the object to be attained, possibly 
because no other object was attainable. The Dublin 
Catholic university was not to be a university of students ; 
it was to be a university of professors, a sort of living 
encyclopaedia of general information. Anything more 
absurd could scarcely be imagined. Anything more 
certain to fail could scarcely be devised. But no matter, 
the bishops willed it ; and as they obtained the Pope's 
approval no one dared say a word against it. If the 
laity objected, so much the worse for the laity. It is 
their duty to give their money, promptly and humbly, 
but not their advice. The bishops do not certainly 
claim personally infallibility, but they claim obedience 
to their mandates all the same ; and the unhappy man 
who dares to even discuss them is denounced as 
" disobedient to the Church," which practically and 
very effectively places him under a ban spiritual and 
temporal ; and he consequently soon finds out that the 
game is not worth the candle. If he is honest and 
outspoken he may burn his fingers once or twice, but 
he eventually subsides. And if he is poor — and eccle- 
siastical support is necessary for his advancement in 
life, as it very often is in America as well as in Ireland 
— he shuts his teeth hard, and pays the tax of sub- 
mission necessary for success. 

This is not a fancy picture. It might be drawn a 
good deal stronger from personal knowledge. The cry 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 331 



of the victim is not heard, or if heard is not heeded as 
long as he submits, and his grievance is not made in 
pubHc. 

It does not seem to have occurred to these learned 
bishops that the staff of professors required for this 
'' Inquire Within " institution could not always be found. 
They hoped indeed that sooner or later there would be 
no lack of students ; but the students were not forth- 
coming, either sooner or later, and once again the 
Catholic bishops proved by a public failure their utter 
inability to manage affairs. Once again they attributed 
failure to every cause except their own incapacity. 
How then could they be mistaken ? And indeed he 
would be a bold man who dared to say that they failed, 
even if he clothed the stern assertion in the most flatter- 
ing attire, and hinted rather than spoke out. For do not 
these bishops denounce and discipline their Galileis ? 
And then when Galilei is found, either in past or present 
ages, to have been unjustly denounced and cruelly dis- 
ciplined for knowing more than his masters knew, they 
retire gracefully, and even with new laurels, because they 
only imprisoned and boycotted where they might have 
excommunicated. And even if the poor Galilei turns 
out to have been condemned wrongfully, he should have 
had more patience, and submission, and loyalty to his 
Church — i.e.y to some obtuse ecclesiastic — and not have 
spoken till he had permission ; and then there will be 
gentle insinuations that the ecclesiastical superior 
knew these scientific truths as well as the irrepressible 
Galilei, but was waiting the proper time to disclose his 
knowledge. 

This, then, says '* one of. the staff," was the object 
of the Irish Catholic university. This, then, was the 
object, not to provide lectures and opportunities of 



332 INSWM THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

distinction for clever young men, but to found a seat of 
learning. To open the walks of the higher education 
to the Irish youth was also an object, but it was 
secondary. So a university was established purely, if 
not exclusively, at the expense of the Irish peasantry, 
to support a staff of English professors. 

A very gentlemanly class of professors was provided, 
but it does not appear to have occurred to the governing 
body of Irish bishops that they could not live for ever, 
that a university could only be kept up by obtaining 
recruits for its professional chairs from the ranks of 
its students, and that the professors, whether present 
or to come, could not be permanently supported by 
the poorest people on earth, even if the support was 
demanded and enforced by episcopal authority. 

There is one marked difference, however, between 
the Irish Catholic university and the American 
Catholic university. The gifted and youthful prelate 
who has obtained the rectorship of the Catholic univer- 
sity at Washington has stated plainly that it is intended 
principally, if not exclusively, for priests. 

The Dublin Catholic university was exclusively for 
the laity. The reason ofthe difference is obvious. Their 
is no Maynooth in America with its great prestige. 
The establishment of an American Maynooth, which is 
the secret object of the Catholic university in Washing- 
ton, would certainly be an immense support to the 
Roman Catholic Church in America. And let it be said 
that the Roman Catholic bishops in America have 
a much larger range of experience than Paul Cullen or 
Cardinal McCabe possessed. 

The friction of a new country has not been lost on 
them. They will have their Maynooth, but it will be 
a nineteenth century Maynooth, with a good show of 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 333 

liberality, but not one whit more liberal in its views or 
useful in its literary character than the old Maynooth 
of Ireland. 

But it will be a Maynooth well-endowed by the millions 
of the miUionaire, although already the promoters have 
begun to ask for the pence of the poor. Later, indeed, 
the poor will be compelled to take more than their share 
of the burden. But the American Catholic working man 
is not so docile, or so easily controlled as the Irishman, 
and there may be difficulties in obtaining funds for this 
new institution which did not exist in Ireland, and 
which the founders are too sanguine to anticipate. 
And has not Archbishop Corrigan already arranged for 
a private Maynooth, for which he demands another four 
hundred thousand dollars ? Certainly the future priests 
of America will be well provided for. It is said that 
there was some jealousy as to the location of the 
university. How easily such affairs are arranged in 
the Roman Catholic Church, where a bishop has only 
to speak in order to obtain all his desires. 

But there is an inner side to this history of failure. 
The Irish Catholic university was opened on Whit- 
Sunday, June 4th, 1854, by the solemn installation of 
Cardinal, then Dr. Newman, as rector. Nothing could 
have been grander than the commencement, and nothing 
less anticipated by the promoters than the disastrous 
finale. The only wonder is that a man of Dr. Newman's 
acute perceptions should not have anticipated what 
he soon realized, that the whole affair was bound to 
collapse. 

When Newman consented, the question of rectorship 
was easily settled. He was then at the very zenith of 
his intellectual power and fame. If a one-man univer- 
sity could be a success, the one man to make it such 



334 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

had certainly been found. What need to say more ? 
The name of Newman is of world-wide fame. Nor was 
there any serious difficulty about the selection of 
professors, except, indeed, the one of nationality. A 
few Oxford men of more or less intellectual calibre had 
quite lately been perverted, and were consequently left 
destitute, or nearly so. It was certainly an anomalous 
arrangement that an Irish Catholic university should be 
governed by an English rector, and taught by English 
professors. But what will you have ? Are not Irish 
affairs always anomalous ? None of these men were 
particularly brilliant, but they were English, and for 
that reason they were specially acceptable to the pro- 
English Cardinal Cullen. Then it was a grand boast 
for the world at large to say, ^'Here are gentlemen 
who have left your English Protestant colleges, with all 
their prestige. We will show that we are not behind- 
hand in establishing such institutions." 

There is one subject, and a very important one, on 
which we are no longer left in doubt regarding the new 
American Roman Catholic university. For the present 
it is only to " teach " theology. To ordinary beings 
this seems somewhat absurd ; but the Roman Catholic 
Church in some of its late decrees is nothing if not 
contradictory ; and thinking men, hearing of new dog- 
matic moral and theological controversies, ask them- 
selves, some in fear and some in grievous distress, 
" What next ? " In the meantime what is the object ? 
What work is to be done in this university, where 
^^ teaching " will be conspicuous by its absence ? A 
great many compliments are paid to the Bishop of 
Peoria for having '' broken the ground," and now we 
shall say a word of the inner workings of the institution. 
He certainly broke ground, and he did a great deal 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 335 

more, by inducing his niece, Miss Caldwell, to devote 
to it the trifling sum of $300,000. The new episcopal 
rector of this university tells about the money he has 
got, with great empressement and gratulation. He has 
on hand $700,000, he is ''sure" (happy man!) of 
$100,000 more. 

The divinity building, which cost $175,000, is "ready 
to be paid for." By this we presume that the learned 
prelate has the money in hand. The grammatical 
construction of the sentence is poor for the head of 
a university. There is to be a "really splendid 
chapel," and we know what a "really splendid chapel" 
means in the Roman Catholic sense of the term. It 
means that gold, and silver, and silk, and ornaments, 
and costly carvings, and paintings, and statues pro- 
cured from foreign countries, and which a king might 
envy, are to be placed in it, and paid for, generally, 
by the poor, and all for the honour and glory of Him 
who said, " Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air 
have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay 
His head." 

The divinity department, we are told, is a "success." 
Eight divinity chairs for professors, who are only to 
teach theology, and presumably for students who are to 
learn nothing else, are already provided for. 

There seems to be only one little difficulty, only one 
drawback, and that is, how to secure a supply of 
students. But the new rector is sanguine, as well he 
may be with all this money in hand, and a joyful 
assurance of millions more. He says he will begin 
with ecclesiastical students, and that arrangements are 
to be made to " stimulate " a supply of such students. 
To the ordinary mind it is quite as difficult to under- 
stand how students can be " stimulated," as it is to 



336 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

understand the use of a university which is not 
to teach anything but theology. It may be well, 
however, to say that the student '' stimulation " scheme 
consists of the endowment of divinity scholarships *' in 
perpetuity ; " and the rector is quite sanguine that he 
will get the institution filled, '' or nearly so," as the 
respective clergy of the country will have to secure 
for their respective dioceses scholarships enough " par- 
tially, if not fully," to fill the institution. Yet the 
"promising young students," who are to come when 
duly " stimulated," are told that they must pay all 
the same, the enormous endowments notwithstanding. 
As a passing trifle, scarcely worth noticing, the rector 
says he will require about $ 100,000 more for a divinity 
library, and to commence the '' beautification " of the 
grounds. 

How enormous must be the wealth of the Roman 
Catholic Church in America we have further evidence 
of in this remarkable statement. He says, for example, 
that ten days' work in the city of Philadelphia by him- 
self and the archbishop of that city, secured $96,000, 
and he did not go beyond the limit of two parishes. 
The reader can see that, as he says, " the real resources 
of the country are as yet untouched." But Bishop 
Keane is well aware, for no shrewder bishop lives, 
that his non-teaching and money-requiring institution 
is not popular with all his brother bishops. And 
with becoming candour, and knowing their dislike to 
the establishment of a university at Washington, he 
says : — 

" It is late in the day either to make or answer 
objections to the university. The two main difficulties 
have been the feasibility of raising the necessary funds, 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 337 

and the choice of the city of Washington as the site. 
We think that the first objection is amply met in this 
article. As to the second, an opportune and competent 
witness is at hand." 

And then he brings for his second competent witness 
as to the desirableness of Washington, the late Presi- 
dent of Cornell University. It is very remarkable how 
Roman Catholic prelates, and even Popes, defer to 
Protestant opinion when it suits their purpose. But 
it is whispered — indeed, it is an open secret — that it 
is not altogether unnecessary for Bishop Keane to fall 
back on the support of Protestant opinion, as to the 
desirableness of Washington as a locality for the uni- 
versity. A note of disunion has even reached the Pope, 
and it will be a curious investigation for the historian 
of the future to ascertain from secret despatches just 
how their " Graces " of New York and Baltimore, and 
their " lordships " of Peoria and Richmond, managed to 
reconcile their differences, and to satisfy their respective 
ambitions. 

The Catholic Mirror^ of Baltimore, which is the quasi- 
organ of Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop Keane, in a 
report of an audience granted to the heads of the 
Roman Catholic colleges and seminaries, March 21st, 
1888, says that ''the Catholic university of America 
was specially uppermost in the thoughts of the Holy 
Father." It is quite wonderful how some writers and 
some bishops know exactly what the Pope thinks, 
and what he ought to say. " He spoke," says the 
editor, " with emotion " (as indeed he well might, 
knowing the serious differences among the American 
Roman Catholic hierarchy), about the university at 
Washington. "It is my desire," he said, " that all the 

22 



338 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

bishops should work together with unity and amity. 
It would greatly grieve me if there should be any want 
of agreement in regard to it." 

The editor of the Catholic Mirror says : — 

'^ These are rousing words from the Vicar of Christ, 
and they must scatter any lurking evidence of a hesitating 
doubt." ''Leo XIII.," he continues boldly, ''shall not 
be disappointed." Which means that Cardinal Gibbons 
and Bishop Keane are determined to have their own 
way. So far so good ; but here is the reverse of the 
medal. The New York FreemarH s Journal is the paper 
which Archbishop Corrigan delights to honour, and 
it reciprocates his good will by constantly expressing 
admiration of himself and his works. Its late editor 
was a power in the Church, principally on account of 
his fine gifts of sarcasm, and utter indifference to the 
feelings of ecclesiastics. They were, in fact, terribly 
afraid of him, and respected him accordingly. 

Here is what Archbishop Corrigan's organ in New 
York has to say of the Catholic university in Wash- 
ington, on which such enormous sums of money have 
been and will be expended : " The Catholic university," 
says the Freeman! s Journal, "will in a short time 
perhaps reaHze the hopes of its projectors." Why 
Washington was chosen as the site remains a mys- 
tery, and why the particular place in which the corner 
stone was laid should have been marked out for the 
great future edifice is a greater mystery. A more 
eligible site could easily have been found. 

But this is of no moment to a Roman Catholic 
bishop, who has this infinite consolation in his difficul- 
ties, that he has only to will and to have. One bishop 
wills to have the university at Washington. And 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 339 

although there is one already established there by the 
Jesuits, on a scale of splendour which is envied by our 
first American pubhc schools — what matter ? A bishop 
desires it ; an obedient clergy and laity have but to 
submit. 

But another theological university is desired at New 
York. If Archbishop Corrigan is disappointed, it only 
remains for him to have a university of his own, and 
he has sent out his orders for its establishment. It 
will cost, to begin with, f 400,000. But what will you 
have, when a prelate has only to speak in order to be 
obeyed, when he has no care for results, and when he 
can throw the blame of failure on others, and take all 
the credit of success to himself, though all the share 
he has in making the success is to issue an order for 
money on a patient people ? 

We are told that in four years' time this university 
in Washington will open its doors 'to lay students. 
The New York Freeman^ s Journal, indeed, says that " it 
is more difficult to get men than to build colleges." 
We believe this significant assertion ; and with the 
example of the Dublin Catholic university before the 
projectors, we might suppose that it would be taken 
into account. But no. The young rector calculates 
that there will be assembled at the national capital a 
large body of lay students, enjoying the advantages of 
*' the highest education which can be offered by the 
scientists of the nineteenth century." The lawyer, the 
physician, the politician, the merchant, the journalist, the 
man of elegant leisure is expected there, and is expected 
to learn how to hold his own among the men of these 
critical times. He says the divinity department will 
need a " grand total " of $1,000,000 ; the other depart- 
ments will require a similar amount each. 



340 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

A letter has been published lately in the Dublin 
Freeman's Journal^ which is a very different paper 
from the New York paper of the same name. The 
letter is written by Mr. Charles Dawson, an eminent 
Irish Catholic gentleman, and the subject is the bribe 
which England always offers to Irish Catholic bishops, 
in the shape of endow^ment for their dying Catholic 
university. Of this university he declares that ''not- 
withstanding all papal benedictions and commands, the 
Irish people would have nothing to do wdth it ; " and 
he adds : — 

'' The upper class of Irish Catholics never gave the 
university a helping hand. It matters little to them 
that it was established by Pius IX. These Catholics 
studiously absented themselves at the laying of the foun- 
dation stone, at which twenty-four bishops attended ; 
they fled from its walls to those of Trinity and the god- 
less colleges. These are the persons who are so anxious 
for the interference of the Holy See in Irish affairs." 

The men who were educated in this Irish Roman 
Catholic university are Nationalists, like Dillon, Kenny, 
and Cox. 

The moral of all this is simple. Roman Catholics will 
give their money to endow Roman Catholic universities 
and schools, — there are political reasons for doing so, — 
but they will be very slow to go to them themselves, or 
to send their children as students. The prestige of a 
Protestant institution will always tell. 

Here is another and equally important and recent 
evidence on the same subject. Mr. Arthur Cleary, also 
a distinguished Irish Catholic gentleman, at a public 
meeting has declared that when he was auditor of the 
Dublin Catholic Historical Society, he- went to ask the 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 341 

late Judge O'Brien, a Catholic, to attend at the opening 
meeting, and he absolutely refused to do so, or to have 
anything to do with the Irish Catholic university. Later 
he was sent on an expedition by Cardinal McCabe to 
ask the English Government to interfere with the Italian 
Government to obtain some favour for ecclesiastics. 
He went from one Catholic to another to get up 
petitions, and eventually had to fall back on Protestants 
for assistance. 

In the June number of the New York Catholic World, 
Bishop Keane had one of his many articles on his 
favourite subject ; and what does he prove ? Simply 
that the Catholic universities of France have been total 
failures. They had money, they had bishops, they 
had the influence of the Holy Father ; but Catholic 
students would have nothing to do with them. We 
doubt if the young rector would have brought this 
subject forward if he had not had a purpose of his 
own in doing so. He wants to show that too many 
universities may be established at the same time, 
though he admits that they were required by the 
immense population of France. One of these universi- 
ties, he says, is " languishing to death," and those of 
Paris and Lyons are kept up only by heroic efforts. 
The whole article is amusing when read between the 
lines. In order to conciliate the. other bishops, he says : 
'^ The extent of our country " (America) *' will assuredly 
call for several Catholic universities eventually, but 
that the success of one " (his own) '^ must be made sure 
before starting others." It would appear indeed, from 
this article, that ecclesiastical students were the only 
persons to be found in the one French university which 
has proved anything like a success. 

One word more, and it is a word of very great import- 



342 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ance to the American people. The rector says he expects 
eventually to have Catholic laymen in his university — 
men who are to be lawyers, physicians, politicians, 
journalists, and "men of elegant leisure," who are to 
learn how to *' hold their own among the men of these 
critical times." 

Now it would not be fair to judge of the institutions 
and mental calibre of an enslaved race immediately 
after it had obtained freedom. But the Roman Catholic 
Church in America has had freedom, and enormous 
wealth, and every advantage for at least a quarter of 
a century, and what has been the result ? 

Look at New York, the stronghold of Roman Catho- 
licism in America, where the public press is manned by 
Catholic journalists, where many politicians, bankers, and 
tradesmen are of the same religion. What is to be said 
of the politicians who have been educated by the Catholic 
Church ? What is to be said of the lawyers ? What 
is to be said of the journalists who defend or write for 
its cause ? What are the names and religion of the men 
who have plundered and robbed their country and the 
poor, some'of whom are in gaol, and some of whom have 
fled to Canada, and who will help the Jesuit cause 
there ? By whom were they educated ? Do the people 
of America wish to have Washington turned into 
another New York, where the votes of the country are 
openly bought and sold in the liquor saloons, where 
vice, and vanity, and degradation reign supreme in the 
very class from which those students came who are to 
teach the country ? 

Wherever the carcase is there will the eagles be 
gathered together. The man came with the need, and 
the man was Mr. Patrick Ford. I believe that it is of 
the greatest moment that the power of the Church of 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 343 

Rome in politics should be clearly understood, and the 
cause and effect of that power; and certainly Mr. Patrick 
Ford has nothing, from a Romanist's standpoint, of 
which he need be ashamed. He has simply acted as a 
"good Catholic," and why should he not have his reward ? 
The histor}^ of his case is very instructive, and it is also 
amusing. Indeed, it was made the subject of a ballad, 
which the comic press of New York was afraid to publish, 
but which nevertheless was privately circulated in that 
city, to the intense enjoyment of a select circle. We 
give it at the end of this chapter. 

Mr. Patrick Ford's career is very well known in the 
United States-; and if his antecedents were somewhat 
anti-clerical, what matter ? All is forgotten and forgiven, 
and he is a man honoris causa, whom the great Arch- 
bishop of New York delights to honour. Why should 
he not, since Mr. Ford came to his rescue when he was 
in the direst strait of his life ? Mr. Ford was, as I 
have already stated, for some years the editor of the 
Irish World, a paper openly published in the interests 
of dynamite, yet strangely, it did not fall under eccle- 
siastical censure until Mr. Ford, in an unhappy 
moment, so far forgot himself as a " good Catholic," 
as to write a pungent article on the style of living 
which the late Archbishop of New York affected, and 
which he sternly denounced. It was a matter easily 
passed over if he collected enormous sums of money for 
dynamite, though he made no secret of the manner in 
which it was to be used ; but when he dared to touch 
the " Lord's anointed " it was quite another affair. 

To propose the murder of an Irish landlord, or to 
blow up a public building with hundreds of innocent 
people in it, was a trifle not worth noticing, but to 
hint, no matter how delicately, that the Church of 



344 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Rome might prosper better if it looked a little more to 
the poor, and a little less to the rich ; if it used its 
enormous wealth to teach the ignorant, to prevent sin 
rather than erect costly cathedrals, and enable its 
ministers to live delicately, was considered by the 
Roman Catholic Church a crime which could not be 
tolerated for a moment. So Mr. Patrick Ford was 
denounced, with the usual result. The circulation of 
his paper fell at once, and he was nearly ruined — 
another evidence both of the power of the Roman 
Church, and of the way in which it exercises its 
power. But Mr. Ford saw his opportunity to regain 
what he had lost, and he was not the man to lose so 
splendid a chance. Dr. McGlynn was denounced ; and 
it is so easy and so pleasant to be on the side of 
power, and it is also, in the Roman Church, so virtuous. 
Why should he not gain the appreciation of those who 
nold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the keys 
of the kingdom of earth also ? Why not secure both 
worlds, when it can be done with so little trouble ? 
Sometimes these men forget that Rome can be un- 
grateful if they are not sufficiently subservient, or if 
they do not submit to the commands of superiors at 
any sacrifice of feeling or principle. Witness the case 
of Herr Windhorst. Even if the subject is a momen- 
tary digression from the present one, it may be well 
to call the attention of the reader to the facts of his 
case, as it has an important bearing on the question 
which we are considering. 

We cannot by any possibility imagine St. Peter writ- 
ing to Rome to dictate a special line of politics to his 
followers, or St. Paul sending Timothy to obtain a 
higher military appointment for the faithful centurion. 
When the Papacy was a temporal power it was neces- 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 34S 

sarily involved in temporal aftairs, but when Providence 
changed its condition, — and if we believe in Providence 
we must recognise its restraints as well as its action, — 
then a happier state of existence was opened to the 
rulers of the Church. Happy indeed would it have 
been if this condition had been accepted. As indivi- 
duals, Romanists should have been left to their indivi- 
dual inclinations in public affairs, while their Church, as 
a body, could have held a strict neutrality of action. 

The sight of a coalition between Bismarck and Leo 
XIII. might make apostles weep. Most assuredly it has 
tried the faith not only of German Catholics, but of 
their Gallic neighbours. The object of this singular 
episode is not difficult to discern. It is a positive 
interference in politics, and one that can be sharply 
criticised, because the motive is so apparent. There is 
no doubt that the Papal homage recently paid to 
Bismarck, though with an utter disregard of the wishes 
and the national aspirations of the Romanists of 
Germany, is the beginning of an end, the results of 
which no man can foresee. 

The tone of the Papal correspondence concerning 
German political affairs should be observed carefully. 
Italians, as diplomatists, have no equals, and cardinals 
have a record for diplomacy not easily surpassed. In 
the Jacobini letters care is taken not to give any com- 
mand from the Pope, and it is stated several times that 
the object of Papal interference is to promote peace, 
and to avert a continental war. But the real object 
comes out at the end of the cardinal's second letter : — 

''The Holy See," he writes, ''in the advice it gave 
regarding the Septennate, wishes to bring about a new 
opportunity of making itself agreeable to the German 



346 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Kaiser and Prince Bismarck. Apart from this the 
Holy See, from the standpoint of its own interests, 
which are identical with the interests of Catholics, can- 
not allow an occasion to pass for favourably disposing 
the powerful German empire to the end of improving 
its position." 

It will be noted that it is said many times that 
the Pope merely expresses his " wishes." But royal 
wishes are commands, and here is precisely where 
the political injustice comes in. Italian cardinals are 
as Roman as the Celt is Irish. Their intense and 
galling bitterness against the court of Victor Emanuel 
should be known to be understood. Hence no means 
will be left unused to regain the lost temporal possessions 
of the Papacy. There are men in the Curia who 
would agree with Mr. Preston of New York, in making 
individual souls or feelings of no account, men who to 
attain their end would crush the hearts and the souls 
of thousands. But while might may be victorious for 
a time, it is not always so, and acts of injustice recoil 
with terrible force on the perpetrators. 

The case between Bismarck and the Vatican is con- 
temporary history, which may have results as important 
as were the differences between Leo X. and the electors 
of Saxony. How bitter was the quarrel, how keen the 
open threats, how sharp the denouncements ! The 
German Catholics, a strong and resolute body, as events 
have shown, w^ere urged in every term of entreaty and 
affection to stand true to their faith and the chair of 
Peter. Herr Windhorst was their leader. He whose 
lifted hands were blessed and praised by the Pope, 
was appointed to deliver his people from Bismarck, and 
in good truth he did deliver them. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 347 



This marvellous man is honoured even by his 
enemies. One who has seen him for the first time 
rising to speak after Bismarck, smiles at the idea of such 
an insignificant person following the man of blood and 
iron. But Windhorst, if small in person, is great in 
speech. A few plain statements of facts, a few statistics, 
followed by keen cutting sarcasm, and you listen and 
forget all save his eloquence and the subject. When 
the Kulturkampf raged in its fury Windhorst was at 
the very height of his power, and even the heart of 
Bismarck yielded for a moment to his impassioned 
appeals for liberty of conscience for his fellow-Catholics. 
And now, when Windhorst's head is white with the 
snows of over seventy winters, when he has spent his 
life and his energies in defence of what he considered 
the religious liberties of his fellow-Catholics, he reaps 
his reward. 

Bismarck, who has oppressed the Church of Rome, 
is now honoured and courted by the head of that Church, 
and Windhorst received, with scant courtesy, an advice, 
amounting to an order, to change his whole policy, and 
submit to the dictates of the man whom he has so long 
considered not only his personal enemy, but the enem}^ 
of the ecclesiastical superior who has uttered this strange 
mandate. Herr Windhorst may well ask, Is life worth 
living ? 

But German Catholics are made of sterner mould than 
those of other nationalities, and how the battle between 
Bismarck and the Pope and the German people will end 
God alone knows. One thing is certain ; it will lessen 
the faith of French Catholics quite as much as it will 
lessen their respect for Germans. 

The interference of the advisers of Leo XIII. between 
the English Government and the Irish bishops was a 



348 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

mere passing breeze in comparison with the storm which 
this affair has occasioned. The Irish bishops were not 
slow to use very plain language to His Holiness. The 
Irish people took the very simple and effective line of 
stopping the supplies. But there is very little credit 
due to the Irish people for this independence. They 
had the full and earnest support of the Irish hierarchy, 
with four well-marked exceptions. If the Irish bishops 
and the Irish people had taken opposite sides in their 
views of their duty of submission to the Papal decisions 
on the Parnellite question, the result would have been 
very different. In Germany there is no question of 
religion ; it is a question of politics pure and simple. 
Herr Windhorst may be a Catholic first and a German 
after, but he is a German, and he is bound by every 
tie of religion and of honour to vote and to use his 
influence in favour of the policy which he considered 
to be for the general good. If there had been any 
question of religion or morals the case would have been 
different. It is policy pure and simple. But there is 
more. Political — shall I say ? — feeling, or animosity, 
runs high in the German Senate. Windhorst has been 
the opponent of Bismarck, and now indeed he is called 
on not merely to submit to a policy which he con- 
demns, but to submit himself absolutely to his ancient 
enemy. 

All the world knows that the man of blood and iron 
is like all such men of imperious will, and not over 
scrupulous as to the means by which he attains his 
ends in the Reichstag, or elsewhere. He will accept 
as his ally his arch-enemy the Pope, and he would be 
more than human if he did not rejoice in the discom- 
fiture of Windhorst ; but it is quite another question 
how far he will respect those who have inaugurated 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 349 

this policy. There has been no concern expressed for 
the coercion and degradation inflicted on the faithful 
Roman Catholic Germans and their champions. 

To return to Mr. Ford. There is another noteworthy 
matter in his career, while he was editor of the Irish 
World, and preaching dynamite with very great success, 
as a mone3^-making institution. Mr. McMaster was 
then editor of the Freeman^ s Journal. If report does not 
belie both parties, Mr. Ford is credited with having 
spent a day following Mr. McMaster round New York 
from one liquor store to another, and publishing after- 
wards the result of his investigations. Mr. McMaster 
died the honoured death of all good Catholics, and 
Mr. Ford, by the grace of the archbishop, is now the 
honoured editor and proprietor of the same Freeman's 
Journal. But there is more yet. Mr. Ford is credited 
with some political transactions in the interest of the 
Church, and in his own interests. The editor of the 
Boston American is my authority for the following : — ■ 

''At a great Irish- American jubilee in New York 
last December to celebrate the Republican victory, it 
was openly declared that the victors owed their success 
to Pat Ford and his crowd. No one mentioned the 
notorious fact, though it was well known at that time 
that Alexander Sullivan had made a deliberate salt to 
Blaine, Elkins, & Co. His followers were to call them- 
selves ' Irish-American Protectionists.' " 

It will be remembered that Alexander Sulhvan, with 
the connivance of Egan and Ford, sold the Clan-na-Gael 
to the Republican party, the price being a certain amount 
of cash, and several fat offices, including a consulship 
for Egan, and a cabinet position for Sullivan. The 
following are a few of the florid expressions of the 



350 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

enthusiastic gentlemen who either spoke at the meeting 
or forwarded their sentiments in writing. Herbert 
Radclyffe, secretary of the Home Market Club, Boston, 
said : — 

'' The Home Market Club sends cordial greetings to 
those true sons of Ireland and America who turned 
their backs upon false leaders, and followed you, the 
Irish Worlds and other noble patriots, in the glorious 
path of Americanism, and all that it stands for." 

Congressman R. T. Davis, of Fall River, said : — 

^* Irish-Americans who have broken party shackles, 
and voted to protect American industries, have proved 
their loyalty to the land which shelters them. You are 
the leader of this movement, and entitled to the grati- 
tude of the American people." 

Hon. George F. Hoar said : — 

" Heartiest congratulations to the noble Irish-Ameri- 
can protectionists." 

Senator Palmer of Michigan said : — 

*^ All hail to the loyal Irish-Americans whose love 
for their native land intensifies their devotion to the 
land of their adoption." 

James G. Blaine said : — 

"The Irish-American protectionists were a very 
potential element in securing the election of President 
Harrison." 

But Mr. Ford was not always as affectionate to Mr. 
Blaine as he is now, and he found it as convenient to 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 351 

change his political opinions as he did to change his 
religious views. A Roman Catholic writer says : — 

" Patrick Ford was here, there, and everywhere 
during the week, running around excitedly, pausing 
every now and then to make sure that the Irish vote 
didn't jump out of his pocket and escape, until he got 
into the presence of ^ the greatest living American,' 
Pat Ford excepted. 

" ' You are welcome home,' said Pat Ford to Blaine. 
The man from Maine has a good memory, and remem- 
bered that not many years ago this same Mr. Ford, in 
his paper, the Irish World y called him a ' demagogue,' 
when he presided at an Irish- American banquet. Patrick 
Ford then said : — 

'"Mr. Blaine is reported as having presidential 
aspirations. As Blaine is a thorough demagogue, he 
thinks perhaps that he may succeed in winning some 
Irish-American votes by figuring as one of the orators 
at a St. Patrick's night banquet. He forgets that his 
presence at such a meeting after what he has done is 
an insult to every intelligent Irishman present.' 

" Blaine must have thought Ford an arrant hypocrite 
when he called to mind what that gentleman said of 
him on another occasion. Said Ford in his Irish 
World:— 

" * Does James G. Blaine for a moment suppose that 
American citizens, with Irish blood in their veins, will 
ever forget that when he was Secretary of State, he 
allowed American citizens residing in Ireland to be 
arrested and imprisoned on mere suspicion, without his 
calling the British Government to account for this viola- 
tion of international law, as he was in duty bound to 
do? 



352 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

" But Ford himself seems to forget it, although he 
never thought he would, when he denounced Blaine for 
leaving Irish-American citizens at the mercy of the 
British Government. 

'* It is notoriously true that Patrick Ford has not the 
general good will of Irishmen. He belongs to the 
rationalist body in New York, and has never been 
identified with any Irish movement that had not the 
success of the Irish World in view. He has not the 
confidence of American working men, and the so-called 
labour demonstration in New York city was a meeting 
of the Ford family, nothing more, and no representative 
of organised labour was on the platform. Labour men 
who were invited ignored the invitation, and stayed 
away. The reviewing stand was filled with Irish 
World employees and with Fords. When an acquaint- 
ance of one of the latter called out, ^ He's there. Ford,' 
about one-quarter of the crowd turned round and said 
in unison, ^ Who called me ? ' In the throng that 
gathered in front of the platform there was not a single 
banner of a trade's organisation. Not even a delega- 
tion from a union appeared, nor even a ' strikers ' 
labour organisation appeared upon the scene. Instead, 
there was the same old-fashioned Republican crowd, who 
always cheer the bloody shirt and the protectionist 
chestnut around election times. This gathering was 
swollen by the crowds of pedestrians who usually 
frequent the thoroughfares near the square at that hour 
of night, and who were no doubt attracted by the 
novelty of the scene." 

The New York Catholic News says : — 

'^ Master's death was in my opinion hastened by the 
responsibility of managing a paper into which he had 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 353 

all his life been putting money, without getting it out 
again. The mental state of an honourable man who 
always paid his bills, and when subscribers were not 
careful to pay theirs to him, may be easily conceived 
by any Catholic editor who does the same thing ; and 
it was a strange thing that some of the old friends of 
the Freeman^ s Journal in New York, who knew of Mr. 
McMaster's difficulty, showed no particular concern 
about it." 

When the conduct of superiors becomes the subject 
of street ballads we are within measurable distance of 
a revolution, and this has been the case in New York. 
It must be remembered that all Dr. McGlynn's 
followers were Roman Catholics, and most of them, like 
himself, still belong to that Church, while they freely 
denounce the evils which they are powerless to 
remedy. 

" Ten dollars and ten days " became a standing joke 
in New York after the archbishop had sentenced Dr. 
Curran to ten days' imprisonment in a monastery, for 
his temerity in speaking the truth about the way in 
which Dr. McGlynn was treated. But it is significant 
that the sentence of excommunication, far from having 
the effect which was anticipated by those who procured 
it, was made the subject of a most ridiculous street 
ballad. This ballad was headed " Corrigan's Curse," and 
was published in Henry George's paper, the Standard, 
besides being circulated in ballad form all over the 
country. We only give a specimen verse here, though 
it is important that the manner in which the excom- 
munication was received amongst the Roman Catho- 
lics of America should be known everywhere. It was 
headed — 

23 



354 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

(" With apologies to the ' King of the Cannibal Islands.') Take 
notice, friends of Dr. McGlynn, WE've excommunicated him. 

" Ipso facto et nominatim. That's Latin for ' let him down aisy.' 

" Ye'll understand we might do worse, but the law says a dollar 
for iv'ry curse, 
Too much of a hole in an archbishop's purse ; so we let the man 
down aisy. 

Chorus. — For Justice Duffy might do worse than fine us a 
dollar for iv'ry curse 
'Twould make a hole in the Corrigan purse, so we'll 
let the man down aisy. 

" So me and old Eyetalian Sim, we've excommunicated him, 
Ipso facto et nominatim. (The Latin'll send ye crazy.) 
And that's to make ye understand that this is now a Christian 
land, 
And divil a Yank can raise his hand widout our high permis- 
sion ; 
'Twas Simmyony made the plan, that wonderful great Eye- 

ta-li-an ; 
'Tis notice sarved on iv'ry man, yez all have changed condition." 

(Chorus as Above.) 

But if some of his clergy failed the archbishop in his 
hour of need, it was not so with poHticians. 

The New York Freeman^ s Journal says : — 

" A correspondent asks for a definition of genius and 
friendship. Nothing is harder than to adequately 
define words which mean so much. While apologising 
for inability to do it, permit us to offer Cardinal 
Newman's admirable definition of the word friend : — 

" * But give me for my friend one who will unite heart 
and hand with me, who will throw himself into my 
cause and interest, who will take part when I am 
attacked, who will be sure beforehand that I am in the 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 355 

right, and if he is critical, as he may have cause to be, 
toward a being of sin and imperfection, will be so from 
very love and loyalty, and a wish that others should love 
me as heartily as he." 

''A circular was sent last evening to the Herald 
which purports to be the text of an amended declaration 
of loyalty to Archbishop Corrigan. It is introduced in 
very vigorous language, and is described as a * New 
Coercion Bill.' The amendment is said to be the 
omission of Dr. McGlynn's name from the original 
document, although the reference to the former pastor 
of St. Stephen's indicates him as plainly as if his name 
were mentioned. This new circular is said to have 
been sent out on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, 
accompanied by a letter from Father Lynch as ^ secre- 
tary.' Father Lynch, according to the correspondent 
who sends the document to the Herald^ disclosed its real 
purpose by a frank statement to several of the clergy, 
that ' it was for use at Rome against the efforts of 
Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop Keane.' 

" The following is the document : — 

" ' Most Reverend Archbishop, we, the priests of the 
archdiocese of New York, come before you to express 
our sincere attachment to you, and our unfeigned and 
cheerful loyalty to your authority. We recognise in 
you our ecclesiastical superior, who, being in full com- 
munion with the head of the Catholic Church, the 
successor of St. Peter, lawfully rule, teach, and judge 
this portion of the flock of Christ, the archdiocese of 
New York. 

^* ^Conformably to the exhortation of St. Paul, we look 
up to you as our prelate, who speaks to us the Word of 
God, whose faith we follow. And pondering the grave 
injunction of the same Apostle, " Obey your prelates, 



356 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

and be subject to them ; for they watch as having to 
render an account of your souls, that they may do this 
with joy and not with grief; for this is not expedient 
for you" (Heb. xiii. 17). We desire also on this 
occasion to record our emphatic disapproval and re- 
probation of the act of disobedience and disloyalty to 
your authority of which a certain member of our body 
has made himself guilty, an act of disloyalty aggravated 
by his subsequent course. We have been patiently 
hoping and praying that our dear brother would change 
his mind and return to his Father's house; but observing 
that our charitable silence is construed into acquiescence 
in and approval of disobedience, and that it causes 
some surprise both here and abroad, learning, moreover, 
that it is publicly asserted that he is believed to uphold 
the cause of the clergy, in general we feel it our duty 
to make this solemn declaration to you, that the clergy 
of the archdiocese of New York utterly condemn all 
disobedience to lawfully constituted authority, especially 
to the authority of the Church, and can have no sym- 
pathy with the efforts of those who in any way set 
that authority aside. Our motto shall always be : " An 
obedient man shall speak of victory" (Prov. xxi. 28)'" 

It may be well here to give the history of some more 
of the men whom the Roman Catholic Church delights 
to honour, as it has honoured the dynamiter Ford. 

The Chicago Herald, a Democratic paper, says : — 

^* It would seem, from the present view of Dr. Cronin's 
assassination, that all the Clan-na-Gael professionals, 
the mysterious individuals, the Number Ones, the 
dynamiters, the treasurers, without a treasury, the 
blunderers, without a pause, are citizens of the United 
States only so far as their votes are needed for the 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 357 

Republican party. If we catch an Irish patriot who 
is too near the assassination, do we not catch a Jim 
Blaine Republican ? 

" Egan was made minister to Chili by the Secretary 
of State ; Austin E. Ford, a nephew of the editor of 
the Irish American^ is a candidate for Surveyor of the 
Port of New York, his principal backers being Patrick 
Ford and James G. Blaine ; John F. Finnerty, of 
Chicago, is stated to be Mr. Blaine's candidate for 
Sub-treasurer at that city ; the man Maloney, arrested 
and released in New York as an accessory to Cronin's 
murder, is a Blaine candidate for a Custom House 
position. These are all Clan-na-Gael professional 
patriots. 

^' But chief of them all is Mr. Alexander Sullivan, who 
it was currently stated at the time was to enter the 
Cabinet as the representative of the Irish-American 
vote, in the event of Mr. Blaine's election in 1884." 

The Boston Advertiser says : — 

" This man Sullivan, who as head of the Clan-na-Gael 
secret society is under arrest for complicity in the 
murder of Cronin, is a man whose name has been 
foremost for some years among the gentry who have 
figured as chief recipients of the money wrung from 
sympathetic Irishmen to help the Irish cause. . . . He 
is forty-eight years old, son of an English sergeant 
stationed in Canada. ... In 1869 he was made 
Collector of Internal Revenue in New Mexico, and in 
a few months a shortage in his accounts caused his 
removal. While there he shot and wounded Judge 
Hough, but soon after leaving his first place became, 
through the influence of S. B. Elkins (Mr. Blaine's 
chief lieutenant), postmaster." 



35^ INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

'^ Thence/' says the Advertiser, " he fled to Chicago, 
became Secretary of the Board of Works, a bankrupt, 
then the slayer of one Hanford, for whose murder on 
the second trial he escaped conviction, ' by the secret 
use of his influence in the Irish organisation.' 

" In 1884 Sullivan was at the head of the so-called 
Irish movement in aid of Blaine, from which much was 
expected, and practically nothing came. He was in 
the employ of the Republican managers, who were 
deceived by his statements, and the supposed influence 
that he had with the Irish. He was handsomely paid 
during the campaign, and an expensive headquarters 
was run by him in New York city. He charged for 
speeches never delivered, and promised thousands of 
votes which were afterwards cast for Cleveland." 

But there is other and even more direct testimony 
regarding the character of this English, Irish-American, 
Roman Catholic patriot, and coadjutor of Mr. Blaine 
and Mr. Egan. In a letter from certain prominent 
members of the Irish-American Club to the New York 
World, it is asked, '' Does not he " (Michael Davitt) 
*^know that Sullivan was adjudged bankrupt in court, 
yet when afterwards elected President of the League 
spent $100,000 in speculation?" The St. Louis 
Republic's Washington correspondent, in a despatch 
to that journal, says : — 

" Now that the coroner's jury has declared that the 
Clan-na-Gael is not in harmony with and is injurious 
to American institutions, and that Alexander Sullivan 
is behind the bars accused of being the leading spirit 
in the conspiracy for murder, Mr. Blaine is far from 
happy. -It discredits entirely Blaine's Irish Roman 
Catholic supporters before the country, in fact, before 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 359 

the world. Egan has been rewarded with an important 
diplomatic position, although he is even now high up 
in the councils of the Clan-na-Gael, if not actually one 
of the famous, or rather infamous, ' triangle.' It also 
was brought out during the investigation, and no doubt 
will be brought out plainer during Sullivan's trial, 
that Sullivan and Ford speculated with the funds of 
organisation contributed by patriotic Irish people for 
what the}^ considered to be patriotic purposes. It was 
shown also that Sullivan and Egan, as commanders of 
the Clan-na-Gael, sent men to Great Britain to blow up 
buildings with dynamite, and murder not only men 
but women and children. 

'' Can anybody imagine any other single Secretary of 
State, from the first of them to Mr. Bayard inclusive, 
having such friends and allies as the Egans, Fords, and 
Sullivans ? Is it possible to think of Jefferson, Randolph 
Pickering, Marshall, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Clay, 
Livingstone, Webster, Buchanan, Calhoun, Everett, 
Marcy, Cass, Black, Seward, Fish, Frelinghuysen, 
sleeping in the same political bed with such a crew ? 
It is not Mr. Blaine, not Mr. Harrison only, who suffers, 
or who suffers most from such associations or connec- 
tions near or remote with it. It is the good fame of 
the country that suffers most of all. It is the country 
that is dishonoured, shamed all the world over by the 
selection of plotters and dynamiters to places of honour 
at home and abroad, and who are selected solely be- 
cause they are able or pretend to be able, to control 
the vote of a secret society, whose purposes are 
abhorrent to civilisation, and dangerous to the institu- 
tions of the country." 

It is well fur Americans, it is well for all English- 



360 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



Speaking people to know what is the true character of 
the men who govern America. They are good Roman 
Cathohcs certainly. They will never be excommuni- 
cated like McGlynn, or refused Christian burial like 
John McGlynn, yet do not think they deserve endorse- 
ment as good Christians. 

But there is yet another, and if possible, more serious 
evil connected with the political power of the Pope. 
It is the utter demoralisation of the masses of the people. 
The politicians of America must cater to the liquor 
saloon interests — in fact, as I have said elsewhere, the 
liquor saloon-keeper is the boss of the ward, and is 
respected accordingly ; but what shall be said when 
priests who should say with their Master, '' My kingdom 
is not of this world," use the means Avhich others do, 
and degrade themselves and their office accordingly ? 

The liquor saloon-keeper is, with rare exceptions, " a 
Catholic and an Irishman." He has all the supersti- 
tion of his race and of his religion. The victims of his 
saloons die beautiful and holy deaths, attended to the 
scaffold by Sisters of Mercy and priests, after they 
have repented more or less in gaol for brutal murders. 
To have saved them from so terrible a fate, and from 
the need of such a late repentance, would seem to some 
of us to have been a greater mercy. Then the power 
of the liquor-saloon keeper is invoked to help their un- 
fortunate and destitute children ; but would it not have 
been better to have tried the power of the Church to 
keep the husband and father from drink and crime ? 
Then the sisters, already well paid by Government (the 
politicians see to this), go to beg in the same liquor 
saloons which ruined the father, taking with them 
these little orphan children, who, later in life, will 
remember how they were brought to these places by 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 361 

sisters, and received liberal support from the generous 
dram-seller. Besides this, they collect ceaselessly from 
the poorest of the poor, always more ready than the 
rich to help them, and yet they are not satisfied. 

A few priests have dared to speak out on this subject, 
and to denounce the liquor saloons, but they generally 
suffer for their zeal. The liquor saloons not only 
provide for the Church, but they also supply priests to 
the Church. The father of Archbishop Corrigan was a 
liquor saloon-keeper, who, if report does not belie him, 
dropped dead in his own store on Sunday after he had 
defied his priest, and insisted on his right to keep it 
open every day in the week. 

Mr. Skinner, writing to the American Citizen^ Boston, 
says : — 

'*The type of nobility and morality in the Romish 
Church of to-day is but little better than that of three 
hundred years ago. 

" The following escapade of a prominent Irish Roman 
priest occurred in Raleigh N. C. early in May last, 
and was published at the time in the New York 
Herald. John J. Boyle, in charge of the Roman Catholic 
Church of the Sacred Heart, was arrested and committed 
on a charge of brutal assault upon an amiable, intelli- 
gent, and respectable young lady of fifteen. She was 
the daughter of an ex-mayor, a well-known Romanist. 

''We could easily go ^on multiplying these cases of 
brutality and immorality into hundreds if necessary. 
These are the men who have been, and are still, before 
the masses of Europe and America as the spiritual 
teachers and moral educators of the people. These are 
the men whom the great mass of Roman Catholics 
reverence and fear as their spiritual fathers, and as 



362 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

having the power to grant absolution for sin for money. 
These are the kind of nobility that the Church of Rome 
has ever produced, some of whom have been its repre- 
sentative men. These are the men with whom corrupt 
and ambitious politicians fraternise, because in many 
instances they can control a large number of Romanist 
votes in the municipal and state elections. These are 
the men, including Alexander Sullivan, the murderer 
of the superintendent of schools, Hanford of Chicago, 
who manipulate and control, to an alarming extent, the 
associated press of this country/ suppressing important 
facts and news items as they please, or whenever the 
interests of the Clan-na-Gael demand it. These are 
the men who, because they have been in many instances 
ward politicians, and recognised leaders in important 
political campaigns, claim that they should be sent to 
Congress or to State Senate, or as ministers to Chili or 
Mexico or some other country. These are the men 
who arrogate to themselves the right to supervise the 
education of our boys, who are to be the future citizens 
of America, and would, had they the power to do so, 
destroy our colleges, academies, and state institutions, 
and build upon their ruins a Roman hierarchy that would 
wither and blast every free institution of this Republic." 

Even men like Ford may find that they have leaned 
on a broken reed, or we may rather say that they have 
served a serpent which will sting when they least 
expect it. The word gratitude is unknown to Rome. 
We have quoted the case of Windhorst. When Rome, 
to serve her own purposes, could throw aside a man 
like him who had served her so long and so faithfully, 
to please an enemy like Bismarck, what may others 
expect ? The Pope would sacrifice a hectacomb of 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 363 

Windhorsts without a moment's thought to gain a 
poHticai object. The Church is the Baal to which 
every knee must bow ; yet even those who have bowed 
the knee to her will often find that all their sacrifices 
have been in vain. 

But the great and important fact remains, that Rome 
cares but little what weapons she uses to gain her end. 
Whatever Mr. Ford's political or moral character may 
have been, he is now the favoured journalist of the 
head of the Roman Catholic Church in America. He 
is penitent for his past offences against the Church, 
though he may not have recanted his dynamite sins. 
He came to the defence of his ecclesiastical superior 
by issuing a special edition of his paper to glorify him, 
and to denounce one of the best, most moral, and 
charitable priests who ever lived in the Roman Catholic 
Church in America, and he has (for the present at all 
events) his reward. Whether it will pay better to be the 
apostle of Archbishop Corrigan, than to be the apostle 
of dynamite, remains to be proved. The Archbishop 
of New York has the political patronage of that city at 
his disposal, and can reward in many ways. 

The following is the ballad referred to in this chapter. 
Part of it was published in a New York paper at the 
time. 

YE LAMENT OF YE PENITENT, F D. 

Patrick knelt in the penitent's chair 

(Many a better man has been there), 

At one side his grace, and at one side a friar ; 

And they said, " Repent, and you may aspire 

To anything short of the President's place, 

For we rule this land through the Church and our race." 

And Patrick he murmured soft and slow — 
" My circulation is gone low, low." 



364 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

" And in order to keep up the Church and our rule, 

We intend to bring to the penitent's stool, 

Without any other preamble or fuss, 

Any bad pglitician who differs from Us. 

It is ours to rule and theirs to ojDey, 

And we've done for George and McGlynn from to-day." 

And Patrick he murmured soft and slow, 
" It is mine to obey when the way you show, 
My circulation, alas ! is slow." 

His grace he asked for his bell and his book, 
And solemnly cursed, by hook and by crook, 
Every man, and woman, and worthless child, 
That would not obey his rule so mild. 

" Alas ! " murmured Patrick, " I had no sense 

When I used to write against Peter's pence, 

And tell the people who read my paper, 

Even if cursed with bell, book, and taper, 

To keep their money till Rome would learn 

To feel the want of hard cash, and turn 

From the rich and the great, to the poor and the lowly, 

And make matters up, and live more holy. 

" Mea culpa," he softly said ; 

" Mea culpa," he bowed his head, 
And great tears ran down his furrowed cheek — 
" Never again will I hard words speak. 
If a bishop rides in a carriage and pair, 

Or takes the good things of life galore." 

And he paused, and he wept, and he softly said, 
" My circulation is nearly dead." 

" Never again will I stop Peter's pence. 

No matter how great is the Pope's offence ; 

Never again will I dynamite fling, 

Though I thought it once a holy thing. 

I confess I denounced the political ways 

Of Mgr, P — t — n in my simple days. 

Will this noble and kind and holy priest 

Accept me a prodigal late at the feast, 

Of political plenty spread at his board. 

And let me share the good things he has stored ? 



ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. 365 

For, alas ! and alack a day he said, 
" My circulation is nearly dead." 

" I wrote — I know I was guilty then — 

Of those holy, and saintly, and blessed men. 

The English landlords of ancient Erin, 

Who wished the people were more God-fearin', 

Who went to the Pope with hearts sincere, 

And who had only one thought and only one fear. 

Oh, blessed friar ! O Lord and grace ! 

A blush comes over my aged face 

When I think how I questioned their motives pure. 

In driving their tenants out from the door ; 

Sure, they only wanted to make them obey 

Their gentle rule, and their fatherly sway. 

Once, alas ! from that green land I'd have had them swept, 

With dynamite fires (for my sin how I've wept !), 

But now I know, when they spoke to the Pope, 

It was with the pure and holy hope 

That they would reform the Irish race. 

And bring them back (to pay rents) and grace. 

" And as for the case of Dr. McGlynn, 

I wanted to see which side would win 

(And sure and certain that was no sinj. 

Ere I lent the aid of my dynamite paper 

To spread the fight of your holy taper. 

But father, and grace," he said soft and low, 

" Even you sometimes look how the wind will blow." 

And he sobbed and he cried, and he softly said — 
" My circulation is nearly dead." 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE CONFESSIONAL AND THE LIVES OF THE 

POPES, 

AS Rome claims above all things to be a ^' holy " 
Church, we cannot be reproached for dwelling on 
this aspect of her case, above all, as on that alleged 
holiness she founds her principal claim to the obedience 
and respect of mankind. We propose to consider only 
two of what she claims to be the sources of her holi- 
ness and doctrine. In the first place, she lays great 
stress on the confessional as a source of holiness, and 
as a means of preserving it. She is certainly unfor- 
tunate in offering us this evidence, for the current 
history and statistics of the present day, as well as that 
of past ages, show that Rome, as a Church, has no right 
whatever to claim exceptional holiness, that is, if we 
judge her claim by the light of Gospel teaching. 

I admit that Rome can claim, as no other Church can, 
the submission of her followers to all her commands, 
but it is easy to show that the commands of Rome are 
obedience to herself, which is a very different thing 
from obedience to the Gospel. In fact, the commands 
of that Church are unhappily too often opposed to the 
Gospel. We, then, are looking at things from very 
different standpoints. If the ** holiness " of the Roman 
Church is to be judged by the obedience of Roman 
Catholics to her commands, we have no more to say. 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 367 

But even in this case, how httle the world at large is 
aware at what a cost of misery, and of unspoken, but 
none the less real rebellion, Rome maintains her exterior 
submission. 

A distinguished Roman Catholic and Italian bishop 
pubHshed a pamphlet recently, in which he criticised the 
attitude of the Pope towards the ItaHan Government ; 
but he did this with all the expressions of deference and 
abject submission which Rome exacts from her subjects. 
Still he criticised. But no matter how abject the flattery, 
or how humble the tone, it was an unpardonable and 
deadly sin. Now let this case be considered for a 
moment. Here is an educated and intelligent Roman 
Catholic bishop, a lover of his own country, a man who 
might even, according to the teaching of the Romish 
Church, be supposed to know, above all others, the needs 
of the country, a man who had its welfare at heart. 
And how the Italians love their native land we who 
have lived with them, and know them so well, can tell. 
Yet even he must not dare utter one word, or express 
even the most deferently framed opinion as to the best 
way to govern the land of his nativity and his affec- 
tion. How monstrous ! The organ of the Pope, the 
Osservatore Romano^ announces that this bishop has 
*' publicly confessed his sorrow for the views which he 
had advanced," and had announced ''his complete sub- 
mission to the will of the Pope," and thereby gained 
the honour of being once more a "holy" member of 
the holy Catholic Church. In the same way any one 
who was rash enough to pass even the least remark on 
the dispensation given by the Pope to Prince Amadeus 
to commit incest, should either make an abject apology 
for his fault, or cease to be considered a "holy" 
Catholic. 



368 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

No doubt the Pope looks on this bishop as siding 
with his enemies, and with the usurpers of his throne. 
But even if Victor Emmanuel was a usurper he had the 
nation with him ; and surely a nation has a right to 
choose its rulers. 

I have this bishop's noble work before me while I 
write. It proves at least that there is some education 
amongst the Italian clergy, and some thought. He 
describes the state of the Roman Catholic press in Italy 
as miserable. A few journals edited by men who are 
too ignorant to know that the people have forsaken the 
Church of Rome, and will have none of it in temporal 
affairs, no matter what wailing there may be over their 
defection. Men who are too stupid or too much blinded 
by prejudice to realize facts that lie straight before 
them, are, alas ! the guides of a minority, who, taking 
their literary and religious teaching from them, are their 
equals in ignorance and prejudice. 

The temporal power of the Pope exists no longer save 
in Papal fond imaginings. The bishop speaks of the 
temporal power as '' morto per sempre." He says it is 
so dead that no one thinks of speaking of it. And yet at 
this very moment the Pope would not hesitate to shed 
the blood of millions of Catholics, or to embroil the 
whole of Europe in civil war, if by so doing he could 
win back the crown of temporal sovereignty. 

But we are more concerned at present with the fact 
that at this period of the world's history — and in face of 
all the boasted toleration of Rome, and its professions 
of allowing liberty of conscience — a Roman Catholic 
bishop is subject to the deepest humiliation, and is 
punished publicly, because he has dared to say that the 
temporal power of the Pope, being a thing of the past, 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 369 

should not be allowed to become a cause of trouble in 
the present. The bishop very carefully refrains from 
expressing an opinion as to the wisdom of the Papal 
claim for temporal power. This is noteworthy. As it 
is more than probable that belief in the temporal power 
will be made a dogma of the Church of Rome, which all 
Catholics must accept under pain of eternal damnation, 
he is wise. Whatever may be his private opinions, he is 
very careful indeed to state that he does not even wish 
to hint a word against the claims of Peter's successor to 
the sword of earthly power, as well as to the keys of 
heaven. But his argument is simply a common sense 
one. A certain state of things exists — there is no hope 
of change — should we not make the best of existing cir- 
cumstances ? And for saying this he must do abject 
penance. If he had lived in the days when the Pope 
had temporal power, how easy it would have been to 
have erected a scaffold before the Vatican Palace, and 
put an end to his troublesome theories by consigning 
him to the flames ! Rome has an easy way of ending 
all controversy. Whether it is a Christian way or not 
is another matter. 

This bishop might be a drunkard or live an immoral 
life, and no word would be said ; such faults, which are 
only against the law of God, are easily passed over. 
But to express an opinion which differs from that held 
by the Pope is a sin which requires the severest 
punishment. 

Now let us consider the moral result of all this, and 
we can better understand why nations have been 
demoralized, and have sunk so low in the social scale 
wherever Rome has had absolute power. Is it likely 
that this bishop would have ventured to express himself 
so openly if he had not formed very strong opinions on 

24 



370 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

this subject ? Would he have dared Papal displeasure — - 
and he well knew what he dared — for a mere opinion 
that could be changed or modified at pleasure ? What 
a terrible demoralization this man has suffered ! We 
cannot for a moment suppose that his carefully formed 
opinions have changed, but all the same he is obliged 
to lie or to die, at least ecclesiastically. He is obliged to 
declare his regret for having said what he believes to 
be true. He is obliged to express his abject sorrow for 
having made a statement which he knows to be true. 
He must express himself and accept punishment as 
one who had committed a terrible crime. And why ? 
Simply because he has said what thousands of his 
fellow-countrymen, and probably a vast majority of 
his fellow-ecclesiastics, know to be a fact — that there 
is not the least hope of restoring the temporal power. 
It is not a question of heresy, though he is treated 
as a heretic. He must submit to the Pope's political 
opinions, or be denounced as an unworthy child of the 
Church. At present the Roman Church would pro- 
bably say that it was a " Protestant lie " if we said 
that Roman Catholics were obliged to believe in the 
temporal power of the Pope as an article of faith. But 
what are the facts ? We have them here plainly before 
us. Any one who dares to say that there is no hope of 
the restoration of the Pope's temporal power, and that 
this being so it is a question of common sense to make 
the best of the situation, is treated as a rebel and is 
punished accordingly. It is no wonder that the Pope 
resented the erection of the Bruno statue so bitterly ; 
it was a public declaration that whatever punishment 
he might inflict in the future on those who differed from 
him, he could not silence them by death or torture. 
Now what must be the mental state of men, like the 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 371 

Bishop of Verona ? He knows perfectly well that the 
Pope is wrong, and that he is right. But you will say 
that he cannot be a good Catholic unless he believes 
the Pope to be always right in everything. This is 
the theory of obedience in the Roman Church. But 
how does it work ? Is it not evident that it is per- 
fectly impossible for a man to give up his carefully- 
formed opinions ? He may be silent, but he cannot 
alter his judgment. Besides, this is not a question at 
present of infallibility, and here is a point to be noted. 
When I entered the Roman Church, the immense 
latitude which is allowed (on paper) by the Church in 
matters of opinion, was pointed out to me ; and I was 
assured over and over again that the Church only asked 
submission of the mind and judgment on matters 
strictly defined to be of faith by the whole Church. 
But how very different is the real state of the case. 
Now the Church has abandoned her ancient faith in 
herself she is no longer infallible, her divinely given 
power is abandoned, and handed over to an individual. 
And see the disastrous result : every political opinion 
of a Pope is made a subject of infallible decisions, and 
woe to him who controverts them. Practically, the 
temporal power of the Pope is as much a doctrine of the 
Romish Church as the personal infallibility. In fact, 
we may say that the one is logically involved in the 
other. If the pope is infallible in all his pronounce- 
ments, why should not he be infallible in his political 
pronouncements ? In fact, while the Roman Church 
denies that she interferes in politics, despite ample proof 
to the contrary, she nevertheless admits that when 
political questions come within the domain of morals, 
she has a divine right to make an infallible pro- 
nouncement. And note it well, she and not you, or even 



372 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

her most faithful bishops, is the judge of the circum- 
stances in which her poHtical decisions are infalhble. 
Was there ever such a tremendous claim to power, so 
well concealed, and so surely acted upon ? 

Rome demoralizes her subjects by crushing every 
aspiration, and by involving the conscience in ceaseless 
difficulties and doubts. The divinely inspired voice of 
conscience speaks all the time by the will of God. A 
man may submit from fear to a decision which he knows 
to be wrong, but his conscience revolts all the same. 
He may resist God to obey man, but for a time at 
least, the power of God works against the power of 
man ; and demoralization at last ensues when, the voice 
of God in the conscience being more or less deliber- 
ately disobeyed, the man ceases to respect himself. 
How can a man respect himself when he has violated 
his conscience ? He falls lower and lower even in his 
own estimation. Some men fall into reckless, mental 
demoralization, and become eventually infidels ; others 
fall into moral demoralization, and seek in the gratifi- 
cation of their passions a relief for the suppression of 
their reason. 

The unhappy bishop having acknowledged in public 
that he has committed a sin, when he knows that he 
has merely expressed himself on political questions, must 
now express the same contrition, and do the same 
penance in the confessional, as if he had committed 
murder. If he had been a layman indeed he might 
have easily obtained permission from the Pope to have 
broken the law of God, but priest or layman he could 
never obtain permission to differ in politics from the 
infallible head of his Church. To such inconsistencies 
are men driven when they hand over their God-given 
reason to a mortal like themselves. 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 373 

The confessional is indeed a system of sinning made 
easy. It is useless to deny in the face of recent events 
that Rome does not grant indulgences for a consideration. 
The facts of such grants are before the public. But it 
does not need much study to know that the confessional 
is a ready resource for the free commission of crime at 
pleasure. Roman Catholic moral theology is simply a 
sort of intellectual sleight of hand in which he who 
shows how the most sin can be committed with the 
least penalt}^, is the most successful student. I am 
aware that I am making a statement which, if it were 
incapable of proof, would be a very wicked one. I 
might give my personal experience, and I have a right 
to do so. I shall never forget the shock which I 
received when I was told by a priest the casuistry 
of the Church of Rome on the subject of — shall I 
say truth, or lying ? I was assured by an eminent 
theologian that you could tell any lie you pleased, if 
you made a mental reservation to the contrary. For 
example, if you were asked if you had a book, or any 
thing else, you could reply boldly No, without telling 
a lie, because, though you had it, you had not got it 
for the person to whom you spoke. 

But I give proof from the books used by the Roman 
Church for the instruction of her priests. Just as 
I have quoted from the officially approved catechism of 
the Church of Rome, on the question of the real teaching 
of that Church, and have begged those who may be in 
controversy with Rome to make their opponents keep 
to their own authorized statements, so now I say it is 
just, both to us and to Rome, that we should judge her 
system of moral theology by her books of moral theology. 

It is the proud boast of Rome that she never changes. 



374 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

That she does change her rehgious behef all history 
proves, but we take her at her word, and therefore we 
are justified in quoting from her books of moral theology, 
ancient and modern. The fact is, that she has been 
obliged to change her theology, and therefore to change 
the teaching in her catechisms, and public opinion has 
obliged her to modify some of the statements in her 
manuals of moral theology. For example, her famous 
'^ Dens Theology" has been practically withdrawn, be- 
cause of its too explicit statements, and other manuals 
have been substituted which teach the very same doctrine 
in a more discreet form. 

A religion which does not inculcate the great virtue 
of truth, is a poor sample of Christianity, and Rome 
has shamefully and persistently persevered in teaching 
moral theology in which the necessity for truthfulness 
is conspicuous by its absence. In " Dens Theology " it 
is plainly stated that the person who wishes to deceive 
another can do so without sinning, by mental reser- 
vation. If you are asked, " Have you seen Peter ? " you 
can say you have not seen him, although you saw him 
a short time before, because you did not see him at the 
moment when you were asked. In fact, the whole 
system of Roman Catholic theology on the subject of 
truth gives the greatest latitude for lying, and carried 
out to its plain end would destroy all confidence 
between man and his fellows. As for equivocation it is 
explained, approved of, and allowed in the plainest terms, 
and you may safely equivocate even on oath. If, when 
you take an oath, you use an expression which bears two 
meanings, and you apply your own meaning to the 
expression, though you know that your questioner will 
apply a totally different one, you do not lie. In fact, the • 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE FOPES. 375 

theology of the Roman Church amounts to this : You 
may He at any time or place, above all you may lie 
under oath, if you do so in such a way as not to be 
found out. 

I must confess that until I had studied '' Dens Theo- 
logy," which is the great text book and officially approved 
authority, of the Irish priesthood especially, I often 
wondered how it was that men about to be executed, 
who had most certainly committed murder, could die 
after denying with their last breath that they were 
guilty, while the priest who had heard their confession 
and knew their guilt, approved the act by his pres- 
ence. But Roman Catholic theology teaches that a man 
may deny his guilt and not lie. For instance (this 
is the example given in *' Dens Theology "), a man 
may deny that he has killed another by saying, '' I 
have not killed him," if he understands secretly that 
he is not obliged to say to the questioner that he has 
done so. In plain English a man cannot lie to a priest 
without sin, because he is bound to tell the truth to 
the priest, but he may lie to anyone else, because he 
is not absolutely bound to tell the truth to any one else. 
It would be waste of time to go further into the 
refinements of lying authorized by the Roman Church, 
but we must say a word of the teaching of the Jesuits 
on this subject, both because they are experts in the 
matter of skilful equivocation, and because their moral 
theology has the full approval of the Church of Rome. 
The Provincial Letters of Pascal are too well known 
by name to need much explanation as to their object. 
As for the facts contained in them, as all the statements 
are taken from the highest authorities in the Jesuit 
Society, there can be no dispute as to their accuracy. 
One of the most extraordinary assertions of Jesuit 



376 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

casuistry is in regard to the necessity of loving God, 
or rather as to the needlessness of loving Him, for in 
fact, the teaching of Jesuit theologians amounts to this : 
that we need not love God if we avoid hating Him. 
As a matter of precaution it may be as well to love 
God, Suarez says, a '^ little previous to the hour of 
death." This easy theology of the Jesuits, has made 
them the favourite confessors of young men and women 
who wish to enjoy the pleasures of this life, and secure 
the joys of the next. Nor is this easy theology for the 
laity alone. A monk may, without sin, leave off his 
habit if he wishes to frequent immoral houses, to dance, 
or to steal. Indeed the study of the Jesuit theology of 
several hundred years ago is at once the best evidence 
of the necessity for the suppression of the society, as 
well as the best evidence of the utter demoralization of 
society when it was under the absolute control of the 
Roman Church. Priests and friars according to this 
theology are allowed to kill, not only an enemy, but 
even one whom they may have reason to suspect may 
attack their society, or speak what they consider evil 
of it. 

But the great modern theologian of the Jesuit order 
is the Rev. Father Gury, a priest but lately deceased. 
His moral theology is open to all the world, and it 
would be impossible for any honest man or woman to 
read it without saying, '' Here indeed is the mystery of 
iniquity." If ever a work was written to make sinning 
easy for the rich, and reparation by the poor unnecessary, 
this book bears off the palm of wickedness. All that 
is needed is to have a good " intention," and you are 
told with great care how you may make a bad action 
good and permissible by the most ingenious arrange- 
ment. And this is religion! This ''sinning made 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 377 

easy " is the great grace which a Church professing to 
have been founded by a God who abhors sin offers to 
her followers. 

There was a famous apparition some years since in 
France, about which there was considerable dispute 
amongst Romanists. The girl who claimed to have seen 
the apparition was called Melanie. Whether she was 
deceived or a deceiver matters little to the point to 
which I wish to draw attention. In her letters she 
speaks again and again of the corruption and the evil 
and immoral lives of the Roman Catholic priests of 
France. In one of these letters she says, ^'France 
has been ruined because the clergy fear man more 
than God." Then she speaks of how she has been 
denounced by the priests because she has told the 
truth about their neglect of the poor, and their love 
of money. In another letter she says, " The sins of 
priests cry for vengeance, and vengeance is suspended 
over their heads." This is certainly very plain lan- 
guage. In fact, according to her account, the priests 
of France lived grossly immoral lives. In this same 
book there are some letters written by St. Francis of 
Paula who lived several centuries ago. He too speaks 
of and condemns the evil lives of the priests of his 
day. Indeed it is a noteworthy fact that, in every 
age of the Church, we find that those very men and 
women who were afterwards canonized by the Romish 
Church, denounced the priests of their times as the 
great cause of the evils of their day. It is remark- 
able, as an evidence of the fear of episcopal censure 
for saying anything which might be disparaging to 
the priesthood, that in several cases the words which 
denounce the priests and specify their crimes, are put 
in cabalistic language, while in other cases the places 



378 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

where the passages come in, wherein priests are cen- 
sured, are put in a condensed form in brackets, though 
denunciations of princes and others are given in full. 

A very remarkable work has been published recently 
in France, called ^^ Necessary Reforms in the Church of 
France." It is published anonymously, but the author- 
ship is well known. What a reflection it is on the 
holiness of the Romish Church that no priest or bishop, 
no matter how illustrious by his virtues, dare publish, 
over his own signature, one word of the most necessary 
criticism of the grossest evils. How this reminds us 
of the charges made in the inspired Scriptures against 
the Church of the Laodiceans which boasted that it 
had need of nothing, whil^ it was miserable, and poor, 
and blind. Surely if ever a Church was blind, and 
wilfully blind, that Church is the Church of Rome. 
Like the fabled ostrich she hides her head in the mantle 
of her infallibility, and refuses to see until the judg- 
ments of God come upon her for her crimes. 

The writer of this work uses very plain language. 
*' We see every day," he cries out, '' our people for- 
saking their churches and deserting our services, and 
we know not how to recall them. Impiety and indiffer- 
ence increase day by day. Let us tell the truth : the 
laity hate us." What a fearful avowal ! ^' Our people," 
he continues, '' wish for religion, but they do not wish 
for priests." 

Could there be a greater evidence of the utter failure 
of the Roman CathoHc Church to evangelize the world ? 
France cries out for the bread of the Gospel, and the 
'^ Church " gives her the stones of forms and ceremonies. 
"Society hates us, it defies us, it declares that priests 
are hypocrites." It is tempting to multiply quotations 
from this work. But they are all in one strain : the 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 379 

writer has not dared to enter on the subject of the moral 
reform of the clergy, he keeps solely to the fact that 
the priests are tyrannized over by the bishops, and 
that the education which they receive is so defective 
that they cannot hold their own in any fairly educated 
society. All this is no doubt true, but he does not 
touch on equally important matters, because he dare 
not. His risk has been sufficiently great in speaking 
of the tyranny of bishops, and the ignorance of his 
fellow-priests. If he touched on their moral degra- 
dation as he has touched on their mental inferiority, 
he might be sure his anonymous cloak would soon be 
torn from his shoulders, and that he would suffer the 
penalty of his daring as long as his life should endure. 
Here are some of the expressions which he uses in 
regard to the educational status of his fellow-priests. 
" Is it not too true that we are ignorant not only of 
science and profane studies, which indeed we have 
never learned, but even of theology, which we have 
only learned imperfectly ? Do we not consider a man 
who has some knowledge of history, or who knows a 
little Greek, or even a little Latin, quite a marvel of 
learning ? Is not this our own fault ? We are far 
inferior to the laity even in the rudiments of learning. 
Yes, it is our own fault. I will dare to say more : it is 
the fault of our bishops. And those who study and 
have some knowledge — are they not made the sub- 
ject of ridicule and contempt amongst their brethren ? " 
Then he complains that there is no inspection, no exa- 
mination of those appointed to professors' chairs. The 
nomination of the bishop is the all-sufficient test 
of fitness ; the pupils, he says, become attached to the 
professors, and even if they were capable of judging 
of their capacity would be blinded by affection. 



380 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

This too honest priest tells how a professor of 
English was appointed in a college, who did not under- 
stand one word of English. Have I not already said 
that the affairs of the English-speaking world are 
arranged in Rome by men who do not know one 
word of the English language — who are as ignorant of 
political economy as they are of history, and even of 
geography ? 

The writer of this remarkable work shows how the 
very enactments of the Council of Trent are set at 
naught by the bishops, who profess such veneration 
for the Church. Such is the tyranny of these same 
bishops towards their priests, that, he says, they ask 
themselves sometimes. Are they in Russia, or in Turkey ? 
Jealousy reigns supreme : both on the part of bishops, 
who relegate any studious or earnest priests to remote 
places, where they may eat out their hearts in solitude ; 
and on the part of the other clergy who make their 
inferiority felt by their exhibitions of petty spite. And 
this is a Roman Catholic account of the '' Holy " Roman 
Catholic Church in France, whence we hear from time 
to time such grievous lamentations as to the defection 
of the laity from the Church. What wonder — when the 
laity have left the priests so far behind in education, 
and even in morals ! 

Rome is a wrecked and ruined Church, holding her 
position, such as it is, not by the upholding arms of 
faithful children, but by the sword of political powers, 
who hate her even while for political reasons they 
support her. Even Ireland, long faithful in spite of all 
rebuffs and slights, has at last woke up to the true state 
of the case ; and has declared in plain terms that she 
will no longer submit to the political dictation of Rome. 

The Rev. T. Connellan has given an account of the 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 381 

demoralized state of the Irish priests which is horrible. 
This priest, who has recently left the Roman Catholic 
Church, says : — 

'' When I was a boy, engaged in birdnesting, or 
watching the speckled trout as they plunged in the 
crystal stream beside my home, I went daily to the 
same village school with two families, and every one 
in the locality regarded them as the offspring of two 
priests. They may not have been — I do not state they 
were — I merely state what was believed and publicly 
stated by those competent to judge ; believed, too, by 
a people who to this day would expose themselves to 
any risk in order to shield a priest or cloak his failings. 
Now this parish, I presume, was a type of a great 
many more. Indeed I am aware that a very much 
worse state of things prevailed in others. Several 
years ago a priest, who was my own contemporary in 
college, was stationed in a remote district where his 
nearest neighbour was a lady of some taste and refine- 
ment. I do not write these words to hold him up to 
odium, but for the purpose of exposing the system to 
which he fell a victim — a system introduced by a 
fanatic in the Middle Ages, and afterwards made a part 
of the Church's polity. Well, a great intimacy was 
apparent between this pastor and his favourite lamb. 
After some months the lamb was obliged to beat rather 
a hasty retreat to Dublin. Her flight was too late, 
however. An accouchement took place in a small town 
en routCj and believing herself dying she revealed all 
to the parish priest of the place. The seal of confession 
did not prevent him — Roman theology specially pro- 
vides for such cases — from making the fact known to 
the erring priest's bishop. Of course the modern 



382 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Abelard was put under ecclesiastical censure, but my 
readers will be happy to hear that he is now engaged 
in propagating Roman Catholicism under the Southern 
Cross. At the only Irish wedding at which I have 
ever been present the parish priest was drunk when 
performing the marriage ceremony. He had afterwards 
to retire to a bedroom, where his housekeeper, quite 
as drunk as he, kept him company. The family of the 
house charitably drew a veil over the scene by locking 
the door, and withdrawing the key. Indeed I might 
cover pages with facts like those first mentioned, but I 
have said enough for my purpose. Then the vices of 
gambling and drunkenness were almost universal among 
the Roman Catholic clergy of my acquaintance. Six 
tumblers of strong punch at a sitting was not considered 
much of a feat. ^ Spoil five' and 'unlimited loo ' were the 
favourite games. I have known them to be protracted 
until the rays of the morning sun had penetrated the 
room. Then those engaged went off to their several 
districts, some to celebrate Mass at station-houses and 
denounce such vices as drunkenness and gambling with 
an eloquence which drew ejaculations of horror from 
the old women present." 

But when the head is corrupt what can be expected 
from the branches ? Even Roman Catholic historians 
of the lives of the Popes cannot deny that many were 
corrupt, and but few good. And how corrupt the many 
were cannot be told in these pages, except in brief. 

What shall be said of the Papacy from 1378 to 1417, 
during which period there were constantly two or three 
rival Popes ? Can a ship with two or three captains 
even proceed on its course — to say nothing of its en- 
gaging an enemy? Of Pope Alexander VI., 1492, we 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 383 

read :— ^^ The undisguised licentiousnesses displayed 
during the late pontificates were now carried to a 
monstrous excess : for the first time the bastards of 
a Pope being brought forward as his acknowledged 
children." The terrible Caesar Borgia and the in- 
famous beauty Lucretia Borgia, whom it is impossible 
to vindicate from murder and licentiousness, were of 
the number of the children of Alexander VI. It may 
here be noted that from 14 17 the so-called Papal Suc- 
cession ceased. Originally the Bishop of Rome was 
elected by the clergy and people of Rome. In 1059 
election by cardinals was initiated. In 141 7, no regu- 
lar cardinals remaining, the Council itself elected 
Martin V. Never in the history of any civilized na- 
tion has the sovereign authority sunk to greater depth 
of infamy than did the occupants of the Papal throne 
from the beginning of the tenth century to the end 
of the fifteenth — thus : Pope Boniface VII., 894, hav- 
ing plundered the Basilica, and converted the booty 
into coin at Constantinople, returning, murdered Pope 
John XIV. 

Pope Leo V., 903, was deposed and imprisoned by 
Pope Christopher. But this may be regarded as a 
mere prelude to the following : — In 904 began the 
ascendency of the two Theodoras and Marozia — three 
strongly depraved women — who for upwards of fifty 
years held the disposal of the Papacy, which they 
secured for their paramours, their children, and their 
grandchildren. Pope Sergius III., ^'a master of 
rapacity, lust, and cruelty," lived in acknowledged 
concubinage with Marozia. Pope John X., 914, lover 
of Theodora, who governed Rome as queen, through 
her influence secured the Papacy. After fourteen years 
he was starved or suffocated, his brother having been 



384 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

murdered in his very presence. Pope John XL, 931, 
is said to have been a bastard son of Pope Sergius 
and the infamous Marozia. Pope John XIII, 955, 
deposed Pope Leo VIIL, in 964, and annulled all his 
ordinations. The absurdity of infallibility is here 
curiously manifest, for Leo VIIL, after being reinstated, 
degraded Pope Benedict, reducing him to the rank of 
deacon. Pope Innocent XIII. , 1484, is said to have 
had seven illegitimate children by as many mothers. 

Baronius argues that when the Papacy was filled by 
a succession of '^ human monsters, most vile in life, 
most abandoned in morals, even to the utmost extent 
of infamy," its continuance — unlike other governments 
in which vice is followed by ruin — must be a token of 
special Divine patience. 

Other most necessary depositions were those by King 
Henry and the Council of Lutri near Rome ; '^ three 
devils," as Benzo terms them, being then deposed. 
The 'dissolute Pope Benedict IX., 1044, being twice 
driven from. Rome, was succeeded by Sylvester III. 
After three months he found himself opposed by the 
exiled Benedict. The latter having sold his title to 
Gregory VI., finding himself disappointed, resumed his 
pretensions to the Papacy ; so Rome found itself divided 
between them. But in 1046, all three were deposed, 
Sylvester being imprisoned for life. Pope John XXIIL, 
141 5, who so treacherously violated the imperial safe- 
conduct in the case of John Huss ; and who was told to 
his face by Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury, that a General 
Council was superior to the Pope ; was commonly 
styled the *' Devil Incarnate." Von der Hardt gives 
the fifty-four accusations preferred against him in the 
Council of Constance. As Pope he was charged with 
every conceivable crime, was thereupon deposed. May 



THE CONFESSIONAL AND LIVES OF THE POPES. 385 

29th, and was condemned to be kept in custody, the 
further disposal of him being left to the new Pope. 
In July following, this Council of Constance also deposed 
Pope Gregory XII. Two years later it deposed Pope 
Benedict XXIII. for perjury, schism, and heresy — this 
deposition being proclaimed with sound of trumpets 
throughout the streets of Constance. The Council of 
Pisa, 1409, had before this declared these two deposed 
and excommunicated. Another notable instance of the 
deposition of a Pope is that of Eugenius IV., by the 
Council of Basle, 1439, as incorrigible, schismatic, 
and obstinately heretical ; its decrees being confirmed 
ten years later by Pope Nicholas V. 

We may also note the charge of heresy against Pope 
John XXII., 1333, as to the " Beatific Vision," con- 
demned by the doctors of the Sorbonne, and only 
retracted on his deathbed, this condemnation being 
formally decreed by his successor Benedict XII., 
January 29th, 1336. 

As to this latter decision, Raynaldus and others say : 
'^ Some thought this decree heretical." So here are two 
Popes whose ex-cathedrd pronouncements are in direct 
conflict, neither escaping the imputation of heresy. 
Here also may be mentioned the action of Boniface VIII., 
1294, rescinding all the acts of Pope Celestine, and 
confining him in the Rock of Fumorn, where, after ten 
months, he died. 

Pope Stephen VI., 891, caused the body of Pope 
Formosus to be dragged from its tomb, and placed for trial 
in the Papal chair, a deacon being assigned as advocate. 
A council having assembled, Formosus was accordingly 
condemned, the ordinations conferred by him were 
annulled ; his corpse stripped of the pontifical robes ; 
the fingers used in Benediction were cut off; and the 

25 



386 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

body, after having been dragged about the streets, was 
cast ''into the Tiber." Surely in all this there was 
nothing lacking of the ex-cathedrd " or official pro- 
cedure ! And certainly the imprisonment, poisoning, 
and strangling which terminated the career of this 
Stephen were richly merited. 

But still more of ^^ ex-cathedrd^^ action complicates 
this affair, for Pope John IX., 898, rescinded the 
condemnation of Pope Formosus, and stigmatized the 
proceedings of the council under Pope Stephen. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ROMAN CATHOLIC LITERATURE AND ROMAN 
CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION 

AGAIN we take the test of Roman Catholic state- 
ments of facts in regard to Roman Catholic 
literature and Roman Catholic education. 

It is noteworthy that Roman Catholics who make 
the loudest complaints, when they dare, on these sub- 
jects, are the very first to denounce Protestants when 
they call attention to the absence of a Roman Catholic 
literature worthy of the name, or to the failure of 
Roman Catholic education. 

Whenever a Protestant makes any observation on 
the subject of Roman Catholic literature, he finds a long 
list of names hurled at his head as specimens of the 
love which Rome has for intellectual progress. Just 
in the same way Protestants who complain of the evil 
lives of the Popes, are confronted with the names of the 
canonized saints. If only those who are thus deceived 
knew the facts in each case how different would be the 
verdict ! But Rome possesses the immense advantage 
of not only being able to make dogma, but she can also 
make history and biography. And then she has the 
additional advantage over all other historians and 
biographers that she can compel her readers to accept 
what she says without doubt or inquiry. 

With regard to the present state of Roman Catholic' 



388 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

literature, a glance at the serials and newspapers of the 
Roman Catholic Church should be quite sufficient to 
establish their character for utter inefficiency. The 
English Roman Catholic Press is certainly very superior 
to that of America, but the former has had the advan- 
tage of the editorship of men who did not owe their 
education to Rome. It is the same with regard to 
serial literature. Rome could not produce anything 
worth reading until the stream of perverts who came 
into her fold, and many of whom are leaving it of late, 
gave a literary and higher tone to her Press. It needs 
only to compare the Roman Catholic papers with those 
of other denominations to be at once convinced of the 
great inferiority of the former. I had at one time 
intended to take these papers one by one, or at least 
to take several of them to compare with the papers 
published by different denominations, but it would be 
simple waste of time ; I will rather let Roman Catholics 
speak for themselves. 

And it is easy to see why literature of the higher 
class can never flourish under Roman Catholic control. 
Any popular writer can be crushed easily and finally 
by a jealous inferior, and this is of frequent occurrence. 
And what man with a mind will be willing to occupy 
himself in intellectual research, when his sole reward 
may be to be silenced, as he cannot be burned ! The 
Roman Catholic Press seems to exist only to applaud 
whatever the Pope or the local bishop says, to publish 
his many enactments, to find a reason to approve what- 
ever he does, whether it is allowing incest, or permit- 
ting money given for Masses to be turned to other 
uses. The editor of a Roman Catholic paper, having 
expressed his regret that the Pope should have per- 
mitted the incestuous marriage of a royal uncle and 



LITERATURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 389 

niece, says that a recent editorial in the Baltimore 
Mirror defending such a marriage " has done more 
to injure Cathohcism in this country than we wish to 
state. We have been guided by the Holy Father and 
the highest authorities in the Church in our defence of 
the truth. . . . Will not our Memphis brother smother 
his gloomy feelings in the matter, and obligingly state 
just how much Catholicity has been injured by our 
support of the act of the Sovereign Pontiff? Our 
esteemed contemporary, the Baltimore Mirror^ unques- 
tionably one of the ablest expounders of Catholicity 
among the papers published in America, stands on 
the basis of ecclesiastical law in defending the recent 
marriage, by special dispensation, of a titled European 
uncle and niece, and asks the Memphis Catholic Journal 
wherein it errs in so doing. We deem it almost un- 
necessary to inform the Mirror that there are some 
things that in sorrow the Church permits, but will not 
bless or approve. This is one of them ; and the less 
frequently they occur, and the less said about them the 
better, for the laws of established society, under which 
Americans live. What might not have been considered 
unique in bygone ages is looked upon in a different 
light at the present time. What the Church does 
through the agency of the Holy Father, Catholics need 
not be afraid or ashamed to acknowledge at all times." 

And it is to such puerile defence of what they know 
well is utterly indefensible, that thinking men are com- 
pelled by the terrible necessity of defending the 
unscriptural doctrine of the Pope's infallibility. Some 
swallow all infallible pronouncements with a grimace. 
What matter ? They are not responsible for the doings 
of the Pope ! He is infallible ! their only duty is to 
insist on his infallibility and uphold it, no matter what 



390 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

he does. Some, whose consciences are not yet drugged 
to death by years of silent submission to evil, utter 
faint cries of pain and shame, but they are at once 
silenced by their bishops, who tremble lest it should be 
known at Rome that any publication under their con- 
trol should have said one word other than of praise of 
the Pope, who has made them, and can unmake them 
in more ways than one. 

One Roman Catholic writer, the editor of the Mil- 
waukee Catholic Citizen^ commenting on the Freeman^ s 
Journal editorial on burial abuses has dared to say : 
^^What is a Catholic paper for? Is it to be a mere 
court journal, filling its columns with inane flattery, and 
monotonous laudations of everything to which the name 
of Catholic is attached ? Must it play the cowardly 
parasite to its readers, picturing them as inchoate angels, 
shutting its eyes to evils that afQict them, and venturing 
to assail nobody nearer to them than the Mormons ? 
There is such a thing as Catholic public opinion, 
whose influence must be brought into play in advancing 
the social, moral, and religious condition of the Catholic 
community. Unless Catholic public opinion is coura- 
geous enough to perceive and admit evils over which 
it has control and responsibility, no progress will ever 
be made. We shall go on electing saloon-keepers to 
office ; filling the prisons and almshouses with an 
undue proportion of our race and creed ; tolerating 
scandals which write us down among our fellow- 
citizens, and submitting to many other evils." 

Another Roman Catholic paper declares that the test 
of a " good Catholic " is to take a Catholic paper, 
while yet other papers complain bitterly that Catholics 
will not purchase or support their own papers. The 



LITERATURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 391 

paper mentioned also says, in an article headed " A 
Good Catholic : " — 

^' The matter of Catholicity in good standing," says 
the Western Chronicle ^ '^ is determined by the test 
questions : — 

" (i) Does he pay for a seat in the Church ? 

"(2) Does he send his children to the Catholic school ? 

" The cases are numerous, where these tests are 
inapplicable, but for general use they will do. We 
might further add — not as essential questions — but as 
standards which go far to determining the quality of a 
man's Catholicity : — 

** (3) Does he belong to a Church society ? 

** (4) Does he take a Catholic paper ? 

'^ Certainly, if an affirmative answer is returned to all 
four questions, there can be little doubt of the sterling 
Catholicity of the man. He is a supporter of the 
Church. That is well, but we know that many merely 
nominal Catholics rent a pew for their families. These 
' Catholics ' also may send their children to the 
parochial school. But the further tests rule them out. 
They do not belong to a Catholic society, or they do 
not subscribe to a Catholic paper." 

Complaints of the state of Catholic literature are far 
more outspoken in England than in America. Partly 
because the Englishman is given to speak out his mind 
plainly. Pope or no Pope ; and partly because Enghsh 
Roman Catholics, who interest themselves in these 
matters, are generally educated perverts. A '' martyr 
of history " is the name used by a recent writer in the 
London Tablet^ to describe the Roman Catholic historian 
Mr. Burke. He says : — 

''We can furnish a further instance of the indiffer- 



392 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

ence of Catholics for their Hterature. At this moment 
we are pubUshing a translation of Professor John 
Janssen's ^ History of the German People from the End 
of the Middle Ages/ a work upon whose paramount 
importance you have already dwelt, and which is, 
indeed, a splendid apology for Catholicism. From 
amongst the hundreds of circulars and letters which 
have been sent to our co-religionists, we have not 
succeeded in securing one Catholic subscriber, and 
were it not for the help and support of our Protestant 
fellow-countrymen, we should never have been able to 
publish this work. Now we ask. Do Catholics read ? 
Do they read history ? What is the cause of their 
culpable indifference for historical works ? 

^' Mr. Burke's works well deserve to . have merited 
for their author a literary pension, but where is the 
Catholic who has sufficient patronage to get it ? They 
should have brought him through their publisher a 
handsome remuneration for his pains, had Catholics 
the zest for, or did they take the trouble to read, history. 
Strange to say his writings, trenchant though they are 
against Protestantism, have been more sought after by 
Protestants themselves than by his co-religionists, and 
could merit an encomium from Mr. Gladstone, while by 
leading Catholics they have been simply ignored. 

^* Seldom have an historian's merits been recognised in 
his day, and Mr. Burke's, I fear, will prove no exception 
to the rule. If Dr. Lingard was slighted by his own, 
and his merits not acknowledged till pointed out by his 
opponents, so, too, must our present living historian 
suffer. Still, as he lives in my parish, I must in duty 
raise my voice in his behalf. In the last stage of 
poverty, his clothes in pawn, rent unpaid for months, 
and saved only from starvation by the little the priests 



LITERATURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION, 393 

can give, Mr. Burke's career must soon close, unless 
something be done to make his increasing years more 
comfortable, and stave off the end of a life which has 
already shed some considerable lustre on Catholic 
literature. 

"Several valuable historical works still remain in 
manuscript, because the authors — men distinguished 
for their literary abilities and laborious research — 
are unable to encounter the ruinous cost of publication. 
As an instance in point, I may cite a fact which has 
just come to my knowledge. In the July of last year 
a work, combining both biography and history, was 
published by a well-known Catholic author, which has 
been most favourably noticed by the Tablet, and by its 
contemporary the Weekly Register, as well as by the 
Month and the Dublin Review. The book was published 
partly by subscription, yet at the present date only 
half the number of subscribers have paid for their 
copies, leaving the author burdened with a heavy 
deficit." 

It should also be noticed that nearly all Cardinal 
Manning's works, and I think all of Cardinal Newman's, 
have been issued by Protestant publishers. My own 
experience in these matters, with an account of the 
injustices to which I was subjected by priests in con- 
nection with my literary work, will be found in my 
Autobiography. 

A writer in the New York Catholic Review says : — 

" The narrow views of some Catholics shock in- 
telligent converts, and they provoke the thought that 
sometimes jealousy of the talents of certain converts 
has something to do with their harsh criticism. Did 
those persons know that the greater number of con- 



394 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



verts endure a martyrdom of the heart, their charity 
would induce them to spare and aid them, rather than 
disturb them." 

Yet it is not for want of money that Roman Catholic 
literature has failed. The Tablet, of March 3rd, 1888, 
says : — 

" We have seen a calculation, according to which 
the jubilee gifts of the Holy Father include no less 
than 800 episcopal rings, 9,000 chalices, 30,000 stoles, 
100,000 pectoral crosses, 50,000 vestments for Mass, 
and 40,000 albs ! And yet cases are daily arriving 
and being unpacked. With reference to the marvellous 
stole presented by the ladies of Bogota, the capital of 
Colombia, it is affirmed to contain 14,800 pearls, 800 
emeralds, and 340 diamonds." 

The above list however does not include the 
enormous sums of money given to the Pope on this 
occasion, nor the gifts of other precious stones and 
valuables. Yet with all this wealth, the cry is still 
for more. Why, we may well ask, is not some of it 
used for the advancement of the Church ? Why is it 
not used to teach the ignorant Italians of the Pope's 
own country, when even the editor of the Roman 
Catholic Freeman^s Journal, says (sarcastically, it is 
true, but the admission is of value) that it would be 
better even to send out Methodist ministers to Italy to 
teach the people, than to have them in the state of 
ignorance of all religion, which Mr. Lynch describes 
in the leading and only Roman Catholic magazine 
of which America can boast. But whenever Rome is 
attacked for her saint- worship, and told that her religion 
is a religion of forms and ceremonies, her unvarying 
reply is, that she, and she alone, has the sacrament of 



LITERATURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 395 



the altar, and her strong point as she thinks, is her 
altar. And what of this ? How does she show her 
respect and reverence for it ? Is it not by lavish 
expenditure, whenever it will win the attention of the 
world at large, and by utter neglect whenever there are 
only the poor to consider. 

The Tabernacle Society attached to the Convent of 
Notre Dame, Philadelphia, reports that it has exhausted 
its funds in supplying poor churches, and poor priests, 
with the things needful for the decorous worship of 
Our Lord. The Society needs material, silk, satin, 
velvet for the adornment of the Altar of God, and for 
the vestments of His priests. One priest writes from 
a lonely mission in Colorado : " I had to say Mass in 
vestments of old silk darned by my own hands, and 
always ready to fall to pieces until the Tabernacle 
Society sent me what I needed. If they know how 
bare the altars are in some of our poor missions, they 
would redouble their charity." Even in Ireland the 
condition of some country churches is wretched, though 
the collection for the Pope, in Archbishop Croke's 
diocese alone, exceeded by far the entire collection from 
the whole of England. 

We might multiply such instances. We may add that 
" converts " who are charmed and fascinated by the 
exterior attractions of the Roman Church, know but 
little of its real state, or of the neglect and indifference 
of that Church where such neglect and indifference does 
not attract public attention. Even the wine used in the 
service of the altar, and sold by Roman Catholics, is 
sometimes of such a quality that a priest writes a 
protest on the subject to the North-western Chronicle, 
Pardon me, if I again call attention to the fact that 
this is a Roman Catholic paper, and the organ of the 



396 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Archbishop of St. Paul's, Minn., who has been so active 
in emigrating the Irish to a cHmate for which they were 
utterly unfitted. This priest says that he recently 
ordered some wine, warranted to be perfectly pure for 
altar use — and let it be remembered that not only is 
wine which is not pure forbidden for altar use, but that 
its use renders the sacrifice absolutely invalid. — The 
dealer, he says, was a Catholic ; the wine bore all the 
usual episcopal recommendations ; yet on testing it, 
he found that it was not only grossly adulterated, but 
that it was '^ not wine at all." Now it is quite certain 
that this Catholic dealer must have known perfectly 
well the quality of what he sold, and worse still, he 
must have known that he actually made every offering 
of the Mass with this wine invalid and sacrilegious. 
Truly it is only when one comes to know the terrible 
irreverence and habitual unbelief of many professing 
Catholics, that we can understand the state of countries 
where the Roman Catholic Church has substituted 
the teaching of the Church for the teaching of the 
Scriptures. 

Nothing could be easier for a wine merchant than to 
secure the approbation of any number of bishops for 
his altar wine, by an easy assurance that it was all 
right, and a present of a supply for his lordship's use, 
at the altar or the table. Certainly some ecclesiastics 
were guilty of the greatest neglect in a matter which 
the Church professes to respect above life itself, when 
such a state of things could be. And we may be sure 
that the conscientious priest will suffer, sooner or later, 
for his interference with the episcopal recommendations 
of a favourite wine-seller. Probably he is yet young, 
and will be wiser in time. Indeed, when we consider 
all the requirements which Rome makes (on paper) in 



LITERATURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 397 

her regulations for the service of the altar, and all the 
omissions, or commissions, which will completely in- 
validate her sacraments, it is a wonder if she ever has 
a valid sacrament at all. A great deal, certainly, has to 
be taken on trust, even under the best auspices. And 
yet according to her theology how tremendous are the 
issues ! If one sacrament is invalid from even the 
carelessness of an official, a bishop may not have been 
consecrated, though he appears to be so. The faithful 
may be worshipping bread, where they think they are 
worshipping the truly consecrated host, and they may 
not have the benefit of Mass, though they have spent 
large sums of money in pious zeal for the repose of the 
faithful departed. Even in the matter of Masses, the 
Pope can dispense with the obligation of saying them 
at all, paid for or not paid for, as recent events have 
shown. 



APPENDIX. 



THE Rev. M. F. Foley, of De Land, California, writing 
on "The Progress of the Church in America," in 
the Catholic Mirror, remarks : — 

" Catholics hear much on this subject. It is a favourite 
theme with some of our speakers and writers. It gives 
them a fair field for the exhibition of profound statistic 
knowledge, and for the display of lofty flights of eloquence. 
It is, too, a popular, a * catching,' subject ; it pleases all, and 
hurts nobody's feelings. It is not, then, to be wondered 
at that a Catholic mutual admiration society has come into 
being, the principal duty of whose members is to felicitate 
each other on ' our progress,' and to keep as far aloof as 
possible any rough men or rough things whose incoming 
might tend to mar the existing serenity. 

" We are often told of the marvellous growth of the Church 
in this country ; seldom are we put face to face with the 
truth that our gain has been to a great extent Europe's loss. 
Again, when we are told how immigration swells our 
numbers, seldom are we told that thousands of Catholic 
immigrants lose the faith here, who might under other 
circumstances have preserved it in the old world. Often is 
the great natural increase in our numbers pointed out, the 
fecundity of jour healthy, virtuous matrons alluded to, yet 
rarely is it noted that tens of thousands of the children 
born in this country to Catholic parents are for one cause 
or other lost irrevocably lost to the Church. Much is said 



400 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

of converts, little of perverts. Our gains are often counted, 
our losses seldom reckoned. Some statisticians say that 
the Catholics in this country number eight millions. Are 
we eight millions ? If we are, how many in this vast multi- 
tude are Catholics in little else than name ? Our panegyrists 
are apt to measure the glory of the Church by her wealth 
in gold and silver, in buildings and lands, forgetting that her 
true glory lies not in these; forgetting that her Divine 
Founder had not whereon to rest His head, and that the 
Church was glorious even in the day when the prince of 
Apostles could say, ' Silver and gold I have none.' 

^^ Our eulogists are fond too of measuring the glory of the 
Church by the honours showered upon her rulers ; by pro- 
cession, banquet, or reception ; by those gatherings whither 
too often the time-servers flock, and where many times 
fulsome flattery is poured out as water. 

" Why the silence of some pulpits on the temperance 
question ? Why when drunkenness is denounced is the 
drunkard-maker so often left unscathed ? Why in some 
great city parishes where drunkenness runs riot are there 
no temperance societies worthy of the name ? I await the 
answer. 

" The liquor-seller may head subscription lists ; he may 
have the first place at feasts, and the first chair in the 
synagogue ; he may sit at the right hand of the mighty ; but 
the angel of the Lord, who marches at the head of the 
Catholic total abstinence legions, has pointed at him the 
finger of contempt, and said to him in withering tones : 
^ Thou art the man.' 

" Go into our prisons, our reformatories, our almshouses ; 
go into our great asylums where numbers of children are 
being reared, in what must necessarily be a hot-house 
atmosphere, to face the storms of life. Go into the crowded 
tenements of our great cities, into their lowest dens and 
dives ; see the misery, the squalor, reigning there ; see the 
men and women low and besotted, see the little ones dying 



APPENDIX. ■ AO\ 



as flies in the fetid air — or, worse, living, to poison the nation's 
moral atmosphere : in a word see degradation in its most 
repulsive forms. In these abodes of crime, of poverty, of 
misery, you will find thousands of Catholics. Ask what has 
brought to prison and almshouse, to reformatory and orphan- 
age, to dive and brothel, so many children of the Church. 
Trumpet-toned comes back the answer : ' Drink drink.' 

" What is the attitude of Roman Catholic young men on 
the temperance question ? This is important, as the future 
of America is in their hands — one of such grave importance 
that I give the following statement : — * The following resolu- 
tion was twice voted down by the Catholic Young Men's 
National Union, which held a convention recently in Phila- 
delphia : Resolved — That the Catholic Young Men's National 
Union, viewing the saloon as pre-eminently the source of 
evil to young men, use its utmost influence, and urge upon 
the societies connected with it to use their utmost efforts, to 
prevent Catholic young men from visiting saloons. And 
also to discountenance by all means possible the drinking 
customs of society.' 

^* The C.Y.M.N.U. refused to warn its members against 
frequenting saloons or to * discountenance the drinking 
customs of society.' It did that deliberately and decisively. 
It twice had the report read, it twice had the vote taken on 
it. It twice voted down, decidedly and promptly, the recom- 
mendation. 

" It is all very pretty to go on orating about our Catholic 
young men, their capacity for good, the value of their 
societies, their development ; to ask the blessing of the Pope, 
to speak about our ^ zealous and devoted clergy ' and to 
load down official positions with them, to show how attached 
they are to our ' Holy Mother the Church.' But in this 
day of Catholic total abstinence extension and prosperity 
with the council adding to the odium of the saloon, no so- 
called Catholic Union can afford to wilfully, deliberately, 
positively, and decidedly vote down a resolution, merely 

26 



402 TNSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

recommending Catholic young men not to frequent saloons j and 
to discountenance the drinking customs of society. 

^' It is all very religious and devotional to urge attendance 
at Holy Communion on the annual day, and to boast of the 
thousands who answered the Union's call to be thus faith- 
ful ; but how revolting to Catholic thought, and repulsive to 
Catholic instincts, is the action of the convention in sustain- 
ing the saloon. How it made Catholics shudder, to read in 
the daily report that such a resolution, offered in a Catholic 
convention, devoted professedly to the Catholic young men's 
interest, spiritual and temporal, met with ^ considerable 
opposition.' 

"Think, too, that not a word was spoken in favour of the 
resolution ; though there were many there, of course, in 
favour of it. It was not through inattention. For attention 
was requested by the Rev. President to the second reading. 
The vote on being taken was largely in the negative ; it was 
again put to a vote — again voted down. 

" Had we not been there and especially interested in this 
question, and seen the thing done, it would not be thought 
probable. But our readers know it is a fact when the 
Journal declares it. 

^^ The majority of the delegates to the last convention were 
no doubt exemplary Catholics, actuated with true Christian 
sentiments ; but it was plain to any close observer that there 
were many also who lacked the first qualifications for such 
important work. For instance, the vote on the proposition 
' Is the saloon dangerous to our Catholic young men ? ' was 
simply disgraceful. At least five-eighths of these Catholic 
delegates to a Catholic convention voted No — that is, they 
voted in favour of the saloon." 

Yet the writer goes on to show by some curious manipu- 
lation, by no means uncommon when Roman Catholic 
priests have the management of affairs, that it was made to 
appear in the report as if the resolution had been voted. It 



APPENDIX. 463 

is not possible to give here all that might be said on this, 
or indeed on any one of the subjects which are treated of 
in the present work; but I must refer to a place in my 
Autobiography where an account will be found of a priest, 
still an honoured member of Archbishop Ryan's diocese, 
who not only breaks his temperance pledge himself, but 
did his best to induce a young lawyer just rising in his 
profession in Philadelphia to break his also. I had the 
account from the very lips of the gentleman in question. 
If the priest had succeeded, what ruin would have followed ! 
A career which was begun in honour and sobriety would 
have ended in misery, and perhaps in guilt, and a large 
family would have been sooner or later thrown on the 
public for support. Yet such is the hold which Romanism 
has on its votaries that this young lawyer is still, and is 
likely to remain, a " devoted son of the Church." This fact 
should explain to many Protestants why it is that so many 
remain in the Roman Church, who know but too well that 
it is a state of utter and hopeless corruption, while many 
will even deny the evil which they know exists. All this 
is possible, because the Church of Rome is a political 
system and not a religious system. It promises temporal 
as well as spiritual good for adhesion to its cause, and it 
has just enough Christianity to satisfy minds which do not 
look below the surface. 

At a recent Roman Catholic Total Abstinence convention 
Father Hogan declared that it was '' Protestant " to denounce 
men who went to the sacraments, even if they kept liquor- 
saloons; yet a preceding speaker (Father Eliot) said : 

" It is from the door of the saloon that the bloodstained 
footsteps are tracked which lead down to the destruction of 
the family ; it is the trail from the saloons to the low caucus, 
and from the low caucus back again to the saloons, that reeks 
with the deadliest venom that poisons our politics." 

This just proves what we have been repeating so often : 
the Church does not consider the kind of lives her mem- 



404 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

bers live, she only asks if they have given proof exterior 
of belonging to the Church by receiving *' the sacraments," 
and she regulates her scale of sins as pardonable or un- 
pardonable according to their obedience to her rules, rather 
than obedience to the commands of God. 

It is the power of the saloon in politics which is at the 
root of the evil, but it is also because the priest is himself 
so often intemperate that he cannot condemn intemperance 
in his people. 

We now give extracts from an article, taken from the 
New York Herald ^ April 29//^, 1888, headed : — 

THE SALOON IN POLITICS. 

New York Liquor-Dealers claim to control Forty 
Thousand Votes. 

May nominate a Mayor, 

If necessary $100,000 will be raised for the next 
campaign. 

" You don't know what a force the liquor interest will be 
in politics this year," said the vice-president of the Liquor- 
Dealers' Central Association to the Herald reporter yester- 
day. " If it were not for the fact that we don't want to 
hurt the Democratic party in the Presidential year, we would 
run a candidate of our own for mayor. We have got to 
do it soon, and not until we do will the great parties 
recognise us as a distinct factor in politics, a factor that 
cannot be omitted in any calculation. We carried New 
York last year, and we will carry it this year too." 

" I don't see how," said the reporter. 

'' Well, let me tell you. It will interest lots of people, 
and open some folk's eyes. Last fall we organized in 
election districts, entirely separate from any other party. 
At each polling-place there was a liquor-dealer all day long 
whose business it was to see that our votes were cast in 



APPENDIX. 405 

the right way. At the very lowest estimate every liquor- 
dealer in New York can cast five votes whichever way he likes. 
Of course the average is much higher, but calculate on the 
smallest number. As there are over eight thousand saloon- 
keepers in the city, that means forty thousand votes absolute- 
ly at our disposal. It is sufficient to decide any election." 

Political Power of the Saloon. 

^' So great is our power that I know a saloon-keeper, in 
whose whole election district only six votes were cast 
against the candidate he favoured." 

We conclude this subject with another specimen of the 
demoralization, which is caused and materially encouraged 
by Roman Catholic patronage of the liquor interest from 
political motives. But what an unholy alliance this is ! It 
is an alliance which gives a present strength to the Church 
of Rome, but it will eventually prove its ruin, as such alliances 
must always do. In so far as the Roman Catholic religion 
is Christian it is an alliance between Christ and Antichrist. 
Antichrist may prevail for a time, but Christ is stronger, 
and Rome will one day reap in tears of blood what she has 
sown in the crime of drink. 

The liquor-saloon is a present strength to Rome ; mutual 
interests keep the ecclesiastic and the liquor-selling together. 
One tolerates, and the other pays heavily for the toleration, 
and will do so until he finds that he no longer needs the 
support of the Church. But what of the hapless victims 
of all this crime ? What of the unhappy children for 
whom Rome also provides ; and whom she is educating 
without Christian principles in her schools, in her sister- 
hoods, and in her public institutions, to run the same course 
as their unhappy parents ? 

W^e give from another New York paper the fruits of the 
saloon in politics. 

" Over one hundred prisoners passed in procession before 



4o6 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Justice Duffy in Essex Market Police Court to-day. The 
following are a few of the excuses given and their reception 
by the ^ Little Judge : ' — 

*' ' Mary Shannon, you were intoxicated and sitting down 
on the sidewalk,' * I had only taken a dose of bromide.' 
* It was a dose of whisky, not bromide. I have seen you 
before, Mary ; it is not the first case of bromide you have 
had. Ten days to ponder upon your offence.' 

" *■ Daniel Shay, you were found drunk on the street' * I 
have been sick with pleurisy, and only took a couple of 
drinks.' ^ I have seen you before. Five days.' 

^' * Daniel C. Flynn, what have you to say to the charge of 
drunkenness ? ' 'I am in the dry-goods business, and have 
never been drunk before.' ^ Pay $2 for your load, and go 
on your way rejoicing.' 

*' ' David Fitzgerald, you were unable to take care of your- 
self ; you are disgracing an historical name.' ' I am a 
journeyman plasterer, and was working in a saloon. I 
took a little beer, and it went to my head.' ^ Can you turn 
a cornice ? ' * Yes, sir ; and I have five children and a 
wife.' * Instead of buying whisky you should buy bread ; 
but I will let you go.' 

*^ * Katie Brick, you were drunk and making a noise on the 
street ; and collecting a crowd.' ' I was just going back to 
Brooklyn.' ' We have enough noisy women in New York 
without importing them from Brooklyn. Are you married 
or single?.' * I'm a widow.' ^ Ever drunk before ? ' ' Only 
once.' *• Five days.' 

^^ ' Mary Hart, were you drunk ? ' ^ It was the only 
time, your honour. I work for the Mutual Life Insurance 
Company in Nassau Street.' ' What do they pay you ? ' 
^Ten dollars every two weeks,' 'Go home and don't drink 
any more." 

'•Justice Hogan is the Tammany boss in the First 
Assembly District. John Cantlon, a liquor-dealer of No. 16, 
Morris Street, and ' Liverpool Jack's ' friend, is on the 



APPENDIX. 407 

General Committee. Sunday last Cantlon called Policeman 
Tiernan of the Second Precinct into his place; and instead of 
arresting Cantlon for keeping his liquor-saloon open, the 
policeman at the Tammanyite's behest arrested his eleven- 
3^ear-old nephew Edward. They hurried to the Tombs 
where Cantlon's countenance suddenly fell. 

"'By Jupiter!' he exclaimed, 'Paterson's on the bench. 
I thought Hogan was to be here.' 

" As is the custom the policeman reported the case to 
Agent Becker, of President Gerry's society, on his entrance 
to court. 

** ' Can't you lock up the boy until Paterson gets oft' the 
bench ? ' Cantlon inquired of the agent. ' I want the boy 
sent to the Catholic Protectory. Paterson will make me 
pay $2 a week and Hogan won't. I can't aftbrd to pay.' 

" As Cantlon is on the bond of ' Liverpool Jack ' his claim 
of poverty was scarcely credited. The case was submitted, 
but Justice Paterson ordered Cantlon out of court, being 
convinced, as only the most trivial offences had been charged, 
that it was simply an attempt to get rid of the lad at the 
city's expense. 

" But the friend of the mancatcher turned up at the 
Tombs yesterday with the boy. Justice Hogan was on the 
bench. Cantlon didn't take his turn in line. He went 
ahead of all and Justice Hogan promptly took up the case. 
Cantlon repeated the same story on which Justice Paterson 
had refused commitment. Justice Hogan nevertheless 
committed the lad to the Catholic Protectory, and in doing 
so disregarded a rule which is observed by every other 
Justice. It is to hold the lad for an examination pendinganin- 
vestigation made by Mr. Gerry's officers. The lad's parents 
are dead. Cantlon had promised to take care of him." 

Some of the *'■ Whyo " gang, recently hung for murder 
after a career of brutal crime and a life of drunkenness, 
certainly died in the odour of (Roman Catholic) sanctity, 
and were attended and comforted in their last moments by 



4o8 INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

sisters and priests. But what of their unhappy offspring ? 
Sentenced or sent to Roman CathoUc institutions, where, to 
my personal knowledge, both their spiritual and temporal 
interests are utterly neglected, in consequence of the ignor- 
ance and indifference of the sisters. They are brought up 
to follow in the footsteps of their parents, with wrong 
ideas of virtue and vice. They are brought up according 
to the ideas of sisters and priests, and the future of these 
children proves plainly that neither sisters nor priests are 
fit to educate the young. Dirt, disease, and ignorance, are 
a poor help to health of body and mind. 

Why should sisters or others, who receive money from 
the State, object to inspection by the State? I am well 
convinced that if Roman Catholic institutions were inspected 
by the State, unless indeed the inspectors were under the 
control of that Church, a great good would be gained 
for the poor children under their charge. I know an 
institution where, from gross ignorance, and that carelessness 
which is the natural outcome of uninspected independence, 
the children are constantly losing both their eyesight, and such 
poor health as they had when they entered the institution. 
But it is considered a crime even to suggest that a " sister " 
could fail in the least matter, either in the education of 
the young or in anything else. If Protestants could only 
know how this feeling prevails, and the unworthy motives 
from which it is kept up, they would be wiser than they 
are, and would look a little more sharply after the expendi- 
ture of public money in such institutions. Why should 
sisters be exempted more than others from giving an account 
of their stewardship, above all when the results of their 
system of education gives so much evidence of failure ? 



Ptinted by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 



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